Relaxing Sign Rules

"The San Angelo City Council broadly agreed with the city's business community today, directing City Hall to draft a more lenient sign ordinance and rejecting almost all of the more restrictive measures proposed by officials concerning electronic signs and banners.

In all, the council liberalized the city's sign ordinance, allowing the visual animation City Hall said is currently prohibited, as well as telling staffers to remove a maximum banner size that exists in the current ordinance.

The decisions were applauded by the roughly two dozen business owners who attended the meeting and spoke out against the proposed revisions, which would have regulated banners similarly to permanent signs and maintained the video restriction.

The council, hearing testimony from dozens of residents, ultimately agreed that businesses should not be prohibited from using video animation on electronic signs, despite officials' arguments that such a proposal would be among the most liberal in the state and buck a trend of increased regulation in West Texas."