Mayor Mike McMillan told council members last week that he would like them to begin studying the city’s sign ordinance, as he felt there may be a need to make some changes there in the coming year.

“We need to get some clear definitions with this thing,” McMillan said. “Right now, I think there are some concerns that there are some compliance issues around the city that a more strongly worded ordinance may help fix.”

McMillan said some council members had raised concerns about various possibly non-compliant signage in the city, including temporary signage.

“Some of them are just special event signs,” McMillan said. “Some just say things like ‘Buy your holiday gift cards here.’ Some are at financial institutions and some are strictly retail/resale facilities. But the bottom line is, we need to have a standard definition across the board of what is and what isn’t okay to do.”

Councilman Bill Menas questioned the use of banners for some businesses.

“Is there some two week window that they’re allowed to use?” Menas asked. “Because I’ve seen some places that do have them and I know there have been some the city hasn’t allowed.”

McMillan said Menas’ question was a perfect example of why the city needed to study the issue.

“We just need to clean up this grey area,” McMillan said. “We can go through here and follow the letter of the law and make every business we’ve got angry if we want to, but we need to find some sort of balance that works for the city and for business. The sign ordinance is supposed to be here to help us keep things neat and clean, and we need to utilize it in a better fashion.”