The clutter of signs in Winslow is closer to being gone.
“A lot of people will thank us that the sidewalks are cleared up,” Mayor Joe Deets said Oct. 22 at the City Council meeting.
The city is creating a sign ordinance that addresses the proliferation of sandwich-board-type signs on Winslow Way. It would limit the number to three signs within two miles of the business, and they would not be allowed on public right of way. Permits would be needed for those, but not for temporary signs.
In researching the topic city staff found that other towns visited by tourists have stricter laws. Staff met with the downtown association, chamber and others before coming up with the draft law. City manager Blair King said some didn’t want to allow temporary signs at all, so they decided on a compromise of “smaller, subdued signs” the size of ones used for real estate open houses.
Most of the conversation was about temporary signs. Councilmember Kirsten Hytopoulos wondered how the city could keep track of them and if they should be required to have a permit, too. An example of a temporary sign would be for a concert so it would need to come down right after. King said they would be required to have a date on them or they would be removed.
The council ended up agreeing with Councilmember Leslie Schneider. “Let’s wait and see what kind of problems we have,” she said. “We can tweak it down the line…if we feel like we are being taken advantage of.”
There was also some discussion about what Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki said is the small size allowed for political signs. “It’s questionable how valuable (political) signs are,” Deets said. “Frankly we do it because the other guy does it.”
King said BI wanted to have the signs within two miles of the business because some in Poulsbo had signs on BI. And city attorney Jim Haney said the city “can’t differentiate based on content” because of the First Amendment. Also, signs can’t be placed on public property and only with permission on private property. Signs removed by the city will be kept for 90 days before being disposed of if not claimed. As for the size of political signs, King said if candidates can’t respect the values of the community they shouldn’t put them up at all.
Deputy mayor Ashley Mathews said since signs are being taken away she’d like to see the city put up wayfinder signs to help businesses downtown, especially on the east side of Winslow Way. During public comments, Joe Benoliel said he has been protesting against a former employer for seven months, and he feels having to have such small signs “chills my free speech.” He said the law isn’t going to help. “We’ll still have the forest of signs. They’ll just get them permitted.”
Sewer district
Discussion of sewer hookups in southern BI also was a hot topic at the meeting.
Hytopoulos voiced frustration because almost a year ago the council talked about the same thing, and city staff was going to come back with a recommendation. She said council said then it wanted not to have the hookups used for single-family homes, but instead for multi-family. Preference would be given for affordable housing. Existing homes would qualify if they had failing septic systems.
“Affordable housing should be a priority,” Moriwaki said with Deets agreeing.
Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson also agreed. “It should be part of it—front and center. It’s important to us.”
The council looked at a wastewater treatment agreement with Kitsap County Sewer District 7, including 25 additional sewer connections, and to start the process to purchase and connect five requests.
The council ended up voting 4-3 against connecting the five requests because they were not “emergencies,” and they were not multi-family.
Hytopoulos said she’s not trying to frustrate people who need sewer connections, but the city needs a new policy on connections moving forward.
“We have to have a new one,” Fantroy-Johnson said. “It’s not good government.”
The council did vote 6-1 to add the 25 new connections. But Mathews said that’s not enough. “I don’t see why we need to limit it to 25. We need to ask for more.” She was concerned the issue could be used as a way to stop development.
“Holding development hostage—sewage isn’t the way to do it,” Schneider said.
A city memo says there’s no cost to the city for the hookups as connections would be paid for by property owners. A slide show says the current agreement is for 480 connections. About 350 are connected and the rest reserved. The 25 new connections would be for buildings that have failing septic systems or are near sensitive bodies of water.
Hytopoulos said the new connections are not supposed to be for single-family homes along the water in a conservation area. That’s against the Comprehensive Plan and environmental goals, too. She said the five requests were “jumping on the sewer policy of the past” before it got changed.
