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NOT THE DAILY NEWS
11/6/96VOI. 10, No. 45
Political Signs
Papered Athens:
Qraphics Ordinance
Difficult To Enforce
Marion Cartwright's political sign may not be le
gal, but it sure is multicultural. Dole-Kemp, Paul Broun,
John Jeffreys, John Padgett and Max Cleland all found
a spot on Cartwright's sign on his prime corner loca
tion at the Atlanta Highway and Alps Road. In fact,
»he Cartwright sign may be legal, though some of the
candidate signs on it are too large
Determining the legality of the political signage
sprouting like mushrooms along the city's streets and
roads has been difficult fa all concerned Tins was the
first big election since the Athens-Clarke County Com
mission adopted a new sign admance in 1994, and the
adinance apparently has some confusion in it in regard
to political signs.
Twenty-foa property owners got letters last week from
the A-CC government informing them that their signs were
illegal and would have to come 'down within seven days.
Those letters didn't go out until a week befae the election,
though, and the offending signs will be down the next day
anyway
Athens-Clarke County attaney Ernie DePascale sa>s
the government was “lax" in enforcing the sign law dinna
the campaign because they wanted to be sure everybody
understood the law
Jane Shedd. who is responsible fa compliance en-
facement within the Planning Department, said pretty
much the same thing
"We sent out a letter to all candidates with a copy of
the admance arid an explanation," Shedd saic. and we've
been going by campaign offices re-educating people to
the requirements of the aonance The admance was
adopted in 1994, bu* we id not have some of our compli
ance prxedures m place befae now'
A-CC Marshall David Cnolet say- he has to awe
people with illegal signs 30 days to comply.
"It's difficult to face them mto compliance," Choiet
says
Some candidates apparently were confused by
provisions in the graohics ore nance relating to size.
“One candidate whose signs were too big told
me, 'It clearly says four feet square.' I said, ‘It clearly
says four square feet.”
Campaigners also broke the law in abundance
with political signs on the public right-of-way, that area
between the street and adjacent property lines.
“The right of way is the state’s responsibility,"
DePascale says, “but they don’t enforce anything'
Choiet said the city-county is enforcing the law
| agains* political signs in the right-of-way. Public Waks
employees are supposed to pull them up as they go
about their daily work, but that apparently depends
on where they happen to be working. In some sec-
j tions of town the day before the election the gaggles
of signs still fought it out fa turf.
One aspect of the law is clear to all. however:
vehicles can't be used strictly for signage. You can
paint your business name on your truck, but you can't
just use the truck as a sign.
Of course that's exactly what was done with the
“Dump Barrow" red Chevrolet dump truck that got its
premier outing at City Hall the night of the Commis
sion vote on a referendum for non-partisan elections.
Opponents of District 4 Commissioner John Barrow
used the truck illegally as a mobile sign criticizing his
vote against asking the legislative delegation to spon
sor a bill calling for a local referendum on non-parti
san elections here.
In the last week of the campaign the dump truck
was parked out on the Atlanta Highway until it was
brought in and made the centerpiece of all the politi
cal signs festooning the Varsity drive-in restaurant at
the high-profile caner of Milledge and Broad. A tele
phone call from Barrow's brother-in-law alerted the
Varsity's Atlanta top management to the Athens
Varsity's foray into politics and resulted in local Varsity
manager Wilson Elder being Md to get rid of the truck
and the political signs.
From there the truck eased down the hill to Rip's
Car Care for a day or two before making it out to Marion
Cartwright's Brake Pro, where the truck, perilously j
close to the right-of-way, compered with Cartwright's
political testaments on the Alps-Atlanta Hwy. caner.
Farther out Milledge, at Five Points, a large red
and white sign proclaimed the candidacy of Jay
Campbell fa Paul Broun's Senate District 46 seat. The
Campbell sign was too large to be legal, but it sat on
one of the most visible corners in Athens, untouch
able until after the election. The corner lot, formerly
occupied by Dr Rich Kimmich's optometry office, is
owned by Magistrate Judge Michael Coleman.
Coleman says he got a letter telling him that the
sign would have to come down.
“We have received a letter,” he said, "dated Oct
31. It gave us eight days. That's after the election I'm
sure it’ll be down by then.”
Coleman said he leased the property to Bob Pease
and Wink McWhorter with a “hold blameless" ''•'.use,
and said “I consider it to be their responsibility."
County Attorney DePascale said his office
would cite some property owners on election day
in order to get up a test case on the application of
the graphics ordinance regarding the allowable
size of political signs. DePascale said he would
get a Republican property owner and a Democratic
property owner and have a test case with no more
than a $25 fine at stake.
“I want to try to get it settled in our county that
that is the law," DePascale said. “We tried to get com
pliance. Having failed, I want to make sure the law
gets interpreted, and next time we’ll be real tough."
DePascale was ready to get “real tough” with the
phantom dump truck immediately.
"Tomorrow morning we're going to take that sign
off if it's out there." (Pete McCommons)
Art Attack Hits
Lyndon House
With the cancellations of both the Golden Ginkgo
Festival and the First Night celebrations this year,
many Athenian artists and perfamers find themselves
suddenly lacking in valuable opportunities to display
sell, perfxm and share their work. The Lyndon House
has run to the rescue. Saturday, Nov. 9. the Lyndon
House Arts Foundation and the Cooperative Arts
Union are co-sponsoring a day-long arts festival on
the Lyndon House Art Center grounds located at the
end of Jackson Street on the edge of downtown The
entire community i: welcome to come out to the Lyndon
House from noon until dusk to enjoy perfamances by
the Thalian Blackfriars theater group, the Afro-Haitian
drum and dance ensemble, the Athens Mxitessori
School Chorus, several iocal poets and musicians and
many more. Members of the Cooperative Arts Union
will paint faces and oversee a children's art table where
kids of all ages can get creative.
Local artists and craftsmen have been invited to
set up tables to demonstrate, display and sell their
work; and performing arts organizations are invited
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