Billboard ordinance aborted

The debate over a final vote on the fate of future billboards in Maitland was over before it began on Monday, with the City Council voting to rescind it’s application to pursue approving the digital advertising signs when faced with a packed-house crowd of rowdy residents.

Cheers and boos filled the Council Chambers as the ordinance, which would have allowed the construction of a 45-foot-by-14-foot digital sign be built off Interstate 4 on property owned by St. Anthony Coptic Orthodox Church, was read aloud.

Applause rang from the Chambers to the entryway and out the door where the crowd overflowed following a recap that the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission and Development Review Committee had both recommended denial of the ordinance, replaced by hisses and boos that the Council had voted 3-2 to approve it on its first reading April 22.

The loudest cheers came minutes later with Mayor Howard Schieferdecker’s words, “I can tell you all that this will fail tonight.”

Councilman Ivan Valdes, who previously voted to approve the signs, would motion to rescind the city’s application to provide an avenue for the sign’s construction before the public hearing even began – the vote getting a 5-0 approval.

Councilman John Lowndes, who voted in opposition to the signs, said the city needed to use this moment of public outcry as a learning moment – not only that Maitland is not a billboard town – but in reexamining the process of how such an unpopular idea made it so far.

“We have to back up and think about how we got here … We were one vote away from doing something a lot of people in this room would disagree with,” he said.

In the weeks since the first public hearing approval of the sign ordinance in April, Maitland residents rallied by sending out literal and figurative signs of their own throughout the community and to the Council.

Yard signs littered neighborhoods and street corners throughout the city urging citizens to show up to Monday’s meeting in protest of the proposed billboard, and emails flooded the inboxes of Council members who voted initially to bring the ordinance forward.

“It does show that we can be a unified community, and that’s what makes this our Maitland,” resident Jennifer Sigman said.

But revoking this application doesn’t prevent another billboard proposition from being brought in front of another City Council in the future. Following a suggestion by Councilman Lowndes, Councilwoman Linda Frosch requested a discussion item be added to the next agenda June 10 for the city to look into drafting a referendum for the next election for residents to vote on banning any incarnation of the boards for good.