A. Consideration of a Presentation by Jay Sauber and Paul Simon of Sycamore Media Network Regarding Digital Billboards

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1 SYCAMORE PLAN COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES OF MARCH 9, 2015 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chairperson John Lewis called the meeting to order and City Clerk Candy Smith called the roll. Those Commissioners present were: Marvin Barnes, Ron Bemis, Dave Finney, Ken George, Ishmael McGhee, Steven Nelson, Michelle Schulz, Nathan Schwartz, Chuck Stowe, and Penny White. Commissioner Bill Davey was absent. Other staff members present were City Manager Brian Gregory, Building & Engineering Director John Sauter, and Plan Commission Attorney Kevin Buick. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF JANUARY 12, 2015 Commissioner Schulz moved to approve the Minutes of January 12, 2015 and Commissioner George seconded the motion. carried APPROVAL OF AGENDA Commissioner Finney moved to approve the agenda and Commissioner Nelson seconded the motion. carried OLD BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS WORKSHOP ITEMS A. Consideration of a Presentation by Jay Sauber and Paul Simon of Sycamore Media Network Regarding Digital Billboards City Manager Gregory introduced Jay Sauber and Paul Simon and said they would take questions after their Power Point presentation. Jay Sauber said he was born and raised in Sycamore and moved away and has been in the sign business for thirty years. He said the new digital signs are definitely the future and noted they have a lease with Bob Johnson at the AutoBath on DeKalb Avenue. He said the signs are computer controlled, show a series of mixed images, used for advertising, public service, and emergency information. He said the City will be trained to control the signs for emergencies. He said they have a photo sensor that automatically adjusts the sign s brightness in direct correlation to the ambient light conditions. He said the standard sizes are 20 x 16 and he is proposing an 11 x 22. He noted that Daktronics is a quality digital sign company and has a camera 1

2 facing the sign that his monitored 24 hours a day. He said digital signs keep the dollars at home, are seen by actual customers, and display local community messages. He said that digitals can benefit the City of Sycamore through Amber alerts, missing persons, police alerts, national security information, severe weather information, and rerouting traffic. Commissioner Schwartz asked if the signs they would use in Sycamore would automatically dim to ambient light. Mr. Sauber said they would. Commissioner Nelson asked what type of technology was used in the digital signs. Mr. Sauber said they have diodes and individual 12-inch modules. Commissioner Schulz asked who maintained the signs. Mr. Sauber said they do and the company gives them a three-year warranty and there is a guarantee to have them repaired in 6 hours. Commissioner McGhee asked how this would be different than a cellphone. Mr. Sauber said the fact that cellphones cannot be used while driving. Commissioner Barnes asked who could post on the signs and if the County would be the logical entity to post alerts. Mr. Sauber said the representative from Daktronics will train the local government to post and usually that falls to the Sheriff s Office. Commissioner Schulz asked how many ads there were per sign. Mr. Sauber said 8 ads plus the community sign. He said he could have four sold right now. He said they have sold 17 digital signs to communities with populations between 15,000 and 25,000. Commissioner Schwartz asked the lifespan of the signs. Mr. Sauber said the module system gets replaced after 7 years. Commissioner Schulz asked Mr. Gregory if there was anything in the background about what would happen after 7 years if they no longer wanted to run it. City Manager Gregory said good question, and said this workshop is for the singular proposal, but leads us to a broader discussion about our sign code and digital signs. He said we have regulations for electronic signs, but not electronic billboards. He said that currently digital signs are limited to up to 50% of the allowable sign area, but they are smaller signs. He said he was looking for direction and sees that the sign code needs to be addressed. 2

3 Commissioner Barnes said his concern was that they were opening Pandora s Box. Mr. Sauber said because they are off-premise signage they are regulated by the State. Commissioner Barnes asked if that was because the location they chose was a State highway. Mr. Sauber said the signs must be located on a State highway. Plan Commission Attorney Kevin Buick said the City must be standard in the process and this is an issue of regulation. He said it is an intersection between the digital future and some classic considerations that this body gets to wrestle with. He said as a Home Rule community the City does have authority to regulate and this may be an opportunity to try to bring regulation into harmony with the character of the community. Commissioner Schwartz said he was concerned about safety and keeping eyes on the road. Paul Simon explained there are Federal, State and Local regulations and communities can regulate within the State regulations. He said research has been done at the State and Federal level on the effect of digital signs on highway safety and they concluded there is no appreciable difference between a standardized billboard sign and a digitized billboard sign. He said texting on a cellphone is less safe than reading a digital billboard. Commissioner McGhee said he was not considering texting or reading text while driving, but more likely to get the information when stopped by cellphone, than by perhaps driving past signs. Chairperson Lewis asked the height of the sign and if there was any regulation for distance between signs. Mr. Sauber said 30 feet high and signs must be 1,000 feet apart. Commissioner Schwartz asked if the signs were ever hijacked. Mr. Sauber said no Daktronics sign had ever been hijacked. Commissioner Bemis asked if the City s sign code allowed 11 x 22 signs and said his initial reaction was he would not like to see 12 of these along DeKalb Avenue. Mr. Gregory said the size would be allowed at that location, but it would require a variance for off-premise signage and the big question is what we want our sign code to reflect. Mr. Simon said a proliferation of signs was a concern for many communities and for them, too. He said he did not think the City could support a plethora of these because they are too expensive. Mr. Sauber said that one of the most difficult parts is to find a location willing to lease. Commissioner McGhee asked how this compared to social media. Mr. Sauber said that digital signs can be used to drive traffic to social media. Commissioner Barnes asked why they chose Sycamore. 3

4 Mr. Sauber said he was coming back home and Sycamore is the perfect community to place a sign. Commissioner Finney said they may want to look at more than 1,000 feet between signs. Mr. Gregory said we can craft regulations carefully to what we want our character to be. He said that may be a philosophical discussion. Commission Bemis asked if the City would participate financially in this type of signage. Commissioner Schulz said as a member of the community hearing from visitors that this is Mayberry like, she said this bothers her. She said she felt like these signs would take away from our small town character. Commissioner George said he thought we drafted regulations to avoid that. He quoted the Comprehensive Plan Visitors regard Sycamore as a quaint community with a hometown charm. Sycamore residents embrace this image and desire to sustain it. Commissioner Stowe said he thought they needed to look at minimum/maximum size, space between signs is important, and 500 feet from residential properties will eliminate a lot of areas. Mr. Simon said they are very careful with placement and they select sites with heavy traffic. Commissioner Schwartz said he was on the fence whether he felt digital billboards were right for Sycamore, but if they were, he thought a specific area on Route 23 between Mercantile and Peace might work. Building & Engineer Director John Sauter said he denies requests for digital signs each week. He said that right now the maximum size is 87 sq. ft. with 50% animation allowable that is strictly a message board. He said if billboards are approved, then our sign code will have to be reviewed because there will be a fairness and equity issue for digital signs. He noted that currently the City does not allow off-premises signs and billboards would be off-premises. Commissioner Schwartz asked if they could limit the type of advertising. Attorney Buick said probably not because the regulation would need to be content neutral because of 1 st amendment issues. Chairperson Lewis said the concern he s heard are maintaining Sycamore s heritage and how a digital billboard might reflect negatively on the City s character. Mr. Simon said the technology presented in the digital signs is allowing democratization of advertising process. He said they are so flexible and reasonable for the advertiser that a properly placed sign can benefit the community. Michael Stack, 530 Viking Drive, expressed concern about the distraction of drivers reading the signs. REPORTS 4

5 PERSONS TO BE HEARD FROM THE FLOOR ON OTHER THAN AGENDA ITEMS ADJOURNMENT Commissioner George moved to adjourn the meeting at 8:20 p.m. and Commissioner Schwartz seconded the motion. carried Approve: Chairperson John Lewis Attest: Candy Smith, City Clerk 5