Letter: Spike in SLT sign permit fee a mistake
Publisher’s note: This letter was sent to the South Lake Tahoe City Council and is reprinted with permission.
To the community,
Landscaping and signs are to a community what icing is to a cake. It’s the pretty stuff on top, the colorful thing that makes it inviting. You can have the most delicious chocolate cake, but if you frost it with ugly, nobody’s gonna want to eat it.
I just learned that a sign permit went from $235 to $878 – darn near a 400 percent increase. This degree of increase should require a little notice, maybe a warning or grace period, don’t you think? Seriously, there are only four sign shops in town, you could have sent a note.
Whether you know it or not, I, along with our other local sign professionals, spend a tremendous amount of time explaining the ins and outs of your sign ordinance. I patiently and repeatedly let business and property owners know the importance of maintaining the beauty and consistency of signs – because signs are the icing on our cake. I back you guys up every single day. I don’t really enjoy it or get paid for it, but treat it as though it is part of my job, however, I will not steal for you.
The $878 for a sign permit is wrong, really wrong, so is waiting six to eight weeks for a permit that should be stamped, initialed and completed over the counter, on the same day. No one is going to get permits for their signs now, not when, for example, a $200 sign will end up costing over a thousand dollars.
Increasing this permit fee by 400 percent simply makes it impossible to get people to comply with the ordinance, not to mention they will start throwing up ugly signs again. This is a “get rich quick” consultant idea, one that would never have come from a qualified business person, and it will backfire, just like it did years ago.
Perhaps you don’t remember? We were selling signs, getting our permits, the city was making money from permit fees, businesses were cooperating and you guys had photos and records of all signs, thereby enforcing your own sign ordinance. Then, just like now, the city brings in an outside consultant, increases the cost of sign permits to $600, nobody got permits, the city got plastered with illegal signs, our town looked awful and the city could not control the sign clutter.
It’s taken years to correct this problem and now you’re doing it again. Need I remind this council that the city had to reduce the sign permit fee back to its original cost in order to get control again?
Mass quantities of ugly signs make a community look cheap and blighted. Drive through any impoverished area and it will be smothered with signs. Paper “$15 Rooms” signs, reader boards, A-frames and tattered old banners everywhere, all things that are prohibited under our current sign ordinance. Right now, this town, this City Council, has spent gazillions of hours and dollars on beautifying the scenic corridor, organizing and funding lots of wonderful projects, only to turn around and throw away the power to protect what you’ve invested in.
Please reconsider this permit fee. It is out of line and ultimately not good for the community.
Angela Olson, Angie’s Signs
I agree with Angie!!! What is the jusification for this rip-off? It will really hurt small business. Why doesn’t the City spend more time & effort getting their revenue from Heavenly Valley/Vail for ticket sales, etc.? Let the small & medium size business stay in business!
The City should require permits to ride bikes, we have to yield to them but they pay no fee’s for the use of the roads or bike trails.
What exactly does the city DO to earn those kind of fees? The fee ought to be somewhat commensurate with the amount of work required by the agency.
Oldtimer, yes, the woman riding down the center of the lane pulling her bob-trailer, and blowing right through the stop sign in front of me. . . maybe the bike rental companies should at least inform their clients that they MUST follow the same laws of the road on a bike that they do in a car. It might help, and at least that way they couldn’t feign ignorance. I’m pretty sure this lady had just left Anderson’s.
Old Timer, can you point out what CITY permit fees auto drivers pay that bicyclists do not?
Sounds like a short term memory problem again. And these paid consultants…….what a joke.
Same thing happened some years ago when the City raised dog licensing and many animal control fees, making them 50% higher for City residents than for those in the County. Many city folks simply stopped licensing their dogs.
Same story with the City’s Vacation Rental permit fee increase a couple years ago, it was supposed to go to full time enforcement personnel. Another fiasco.
The heck with them, and the City’s higher taxes and fees for identical and in many cases worse services.
speaking of bikes: what’s the deal with dogs on the bike path?
Was there a City Council meeting that agendized the proposed huge hike for sign permits so the public could comment? Open and transparent communication is always the better route
fromfrom, dogs were the fad before bikes. So, of course they are everywhere, on the beach, on trails, at restaurants, on roads, etc. Just like bikes.
Biggerpicture
Cars pay license fee’s when they Buy Gas, when they register there cars. these fee’s all go for better roads and improvements. Bikes pay NOTHING. But use our roads.
So Old Timer, if I walk everywhere should I therefore be responsible for paying a special walkers tax to pay for sidewalks or not be allowed to walk on them?
Your argument is silly.
Bigger… rather than make even more silly arguments, why don’t you explain why bicycles use the roads without any funding mechanism? Further, you might suggest a way for that funding to be equitably applied. Wouldn’t bicycle registration help the bicycle community by allowing identification after a theft? Most everything is registered, why not bicycles? And, of course, taxed.
What a great way to support the local businesses, City! And how hard would it have been to reach out to the few sign shops in SLT in advance? But more importantly, how much revenue could be generated by enforcement of existing signs without permits? Why go after those who are actually following the rules? Bad idea, and bad way to “support” local businesses.
Angela Olson, I’m in total agreement with you on the increase in sign permit fees.It’s not good for local business. Just a way to hurt local business so they lose more out of pocket cash.Take care, OLS
Cautious and Skeptical says: Was there a City Council meeting that agendized the proposed huge hike for sign permits so the public could comment? Was there anything published regarding this? Can anyone tell me if there was such? I do not remember seeing anything about this issue.
The council voted on all fees at a recent meeting. It’s all public info and can be found on the city’s website.
LTN staff
The City of South Lake Tahoe requires funding for all they do-where do you think this money is going to come from when citizens rejected paid parking-or any other tax revenue streams?
Our City Manager and elected officials have done the best they could after all the slash and burn of Ms. Kerry’s predecessor ‘Big Tony’
Quit whining and make Vail pay up-call their bluff about leaving-the Lake will still be here-and people like Angela can make a living from her awesome skills
Will the increase affect realtors that put signs in yards and on businesses? There’s a home in my neighborhood that the driveway is being sealed and the there’s a sign in the street at the end of the driveway with the companies name on it. Will that company have to have a permit to advertise when working onsite? Just wondering?