S. Tahoe going after sign violators; Placer County eases rules
By Kathryn Reed
While South Lake Tahoe officials are cracking down on vehicles driving around with signs in the back of pickups advertising charity events and churches that use sandwich boards, Placer County is relaxing its sign ordinance.
Bob Albertazzi, community police officer for South Tahoe, said because the sandwich board sign was not secure in the back of the truck, it was considered an illegal sign. The sign was advertising Rotary’s annual raffle ticket for a car giveaway. This is one of the service club’s main fund-raisers – with most of the money then going back to the community.
South Tahoe is cracking down on signs, but has used sandwich boards for its own garage. Photo/LTN
“The sandwich board was in the back of the pickup. That was an illegal sign because it was a sandwich board. If they try to drive that pickup, it would have flown out and it is not considered part of the vehicle,” Albertazzi explained.
But on the other end of the lake, Placer County Board of Supervisors agreed this month to relax county ordinances relating to the placement of signs for businesses as a way to stimulate the economy. The idea is if people can better see a business, the business will get more customers.
The change in Placer County is not expected to be permanent.
“Sign restrictions remain to address sign issues that affect health and safety, such as conflicts with vehicle traffic and sight distance, and aesthetic issues, such as overuse of portable and bright signs, and clutter,” according to Placer County officials.
In South Tahoe, Albertazzi admitted to having been lax in his enforcement of churches using sandwich boards on the weekends to direct people to services. He now intends to crackdown on them as well.
In addition to sandwich boards, banners and flags are also not allowed in South Tahoe.
Most of the rules regarding signs in the Lake Tahoe Basin originated with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. Chapter 26 of the Regional Plan talks about the TRPA sign regulations.
At a time when local businesses, as well as charities, face their greatest economic challenges, the city council has decided to implement plans that will block their ability to draw business. Why? We are told it is because sandwich boards MIGHT fly out of the back of a pickup truck. No reason given for banners and flags but those are also included. This is but another example of how the city council causes far more harm than good to our economy and our residents. What is the solution? Follow Placer County’s lead and ignore certain regulations during this period of extreme economic instability and stress.
I put out the signs for my church each Sunday. They are put out at 9 a.m. & taken down at 12 noon. The signs are to help visitors find our location. Many people find our website online and visit while traveling. So my ??? is this. Who must I contact to investigate the possiblity of having a sign installed? To live by the laws of the land is just; but a solution must also be required.
Our church stopped putting it’s sign out on the street corner on Sunday mornings for a couple of hours… the sign did not seem to pose any danger of falling over and becomming a hazard. However, we must follow our local ordinances, weather they seem silly or not… weather they seem damaging or not. In my opinion it seems silly to group a temporarily fixed sign several feet away from the street, it seems silly to group that kind of sign with an un-fixed sign on the back of a moving vehicle.
The sign in the back of the truck: The truck was PARKED! They weren’t driving with it. This town is run by mental midgets (no offense to you little people).
The city or any other gov. ruled by the TRPA, enforces the TRPA sign ordinance as a gift of public funds. Douglas county does not have a sign ordinance so no enforcement. The city council, Tom, Hal, Bruce, ect. could stop this but they don’t. As one said: who sets the policy, cuz this one is an uneeded expense. Do something about it!
Yet another example of our local governments attempt to stifle business. seriously, who is making these decisions?
TRPA? I seriously hope California follows Nevadas decision to dump the TRPA and the swamp of red tape and over regulation they have created.
Support your local merchant but keep his location a mystery.
Part of the enforcement should be for some to fix their signs…starting with Harvey’s burned out lights. Very ghetto.
Talk about misplaced priorities. While scarce resources are being squandered to enforce a mostly ridiculous sign ordinance that hurts businesses and charities yet does nothing to protect the public, a constant parade of speeding vehicles continues to endanger kids, dogs, joggers, cyclists and anyone else who dares to get in their way. For years I have made numerous requests of both beat officers and officer Albertazzi to PLEASE enforce the 25 m.p.h speed limit on our residential street which is routinely ignored on a daily basis by dozens of cotractors, soccer moms and other thru drivers who use this street to avoid the numerous stop signs elsewhere in the neighborhood. 35-40 m.p.h is common and the one stop sign that was errected to slow people down is regularly ignored.
It took a serious accident on this same street several years ago to even get the stop sign (which is only there to slow people down). The way things are going, it looks like it will take another serious incident before something is done about the speeding problem. More stop signs are not the answer. They need to write some speeding tickets and send a message— THIS IS NOT A 35-40 M.P.H COMMUTER ROUTE…..SLOW DOWN OR USE ONE OF THE NEARBY 35-40 M.P.H ROUTES!!!!!! Forget about the signs and enforce the damn traffic laws!
The city council would rather give away land to developers so they can sell it, and then file BK. Examples; Hodges at ski run and 50, Lane at the hole, and the Fantasy Inn.
You must be kidding..I know this is a joke
Tom Wendell… Thank you, I enjoy your perspective on many issues. This is a very solid point, if you look at a grand list of priorities, you gotta ask yourself, what are they thinking? We all could likely go down a list of articles which are being ignored for the most part, but then to place something like signs above other serious issues. I know our city council’s time and efforts and financial allocations could go to many other more deserving problems than cracking down on sign violators. I know… Why don’t we hire an officer to patrol the streets every weekend to make sure no one dare put up those dangerous garage sale signs, they are after all illegal? Right! How about we start popping kids for those Lemonaid stands!
How about going after the very messy garage sale signs that people leave up after it’s over? If there is an address on it, it would be easy to find the culprits. There is no excuse for these old paper/cardboard signs which are truly a worse blight than the ones being addressed…
You would think that they have better things to concentrate on! Kudos to Placer County for getting it.
It’s the economy, stupid! Lets concentrate on the importsnt issues the roads, jobs, HELPING businesses, etc.
I really think if you were to drive down the 50 and truly look around you will notice that the lack of beauty lies in the vacated businesses, the hole in the ground, the tired 1970’s architecture, the hanging blankets at the gas stations, the faded tired t-shirts, the freshly painted graffiti, the dumped shopping carts, the vacated boarded up businesses, the abandoned classic cars, need I go on??? Good thing we have an ordinance on a sign that points people in the direction of their church for 3 hours. whew!
Stuff like this makes me soooooooo glad that I finally live somewhere else for most of the year. I can still ignore the stupidity long enough to spend summer on the beach, but I have yet to find anywhere else that is run as badly as the City of SLT.
mom, you hit the nail on the head.
Just to add a little something, our second gateway into the city, Pioneer Trail, all the places between Ski Run and the reemergence to Lake Tahoe Blvd, (you know where skiers might drive by in the winter) have trash cans visible from the street. Do we really want visitors seeing trash cans out all the time??? I’ve had numerous visitors from high class places say they can’t believe the city allows that, and how it makes the place so low class.
Brian,
Thanks so much for the acknowledgment. I appreciate your taking the time to say so. From the tone of all of these comments, it seems that there is general agreement that we have sooooo many bigger issues to tackle than a few “illegal” signs. Let’s hope that those who make the decisions on how to best utilize our meager resources take this community input to heart.
Does anyone know who to contact to get a permanant sign installed? BrianSHenry@hotmail.com it would be a big help for our church sign.
Just a quick tid bit here. Is the sign in the picture for the parking structure at the Heavenly Village?? If so is that not owned by the city?? Why does the city not follow the law on its signs?? Kinda makes me laugh. Could be wrong but thats the only advertised parking structure in town i know of
Fireman, I wrote about that very same thing in the Feb issue of Mnt News and brought up the point that were advertising as I was told that they could have a billboard as long as it did not advertise. BTW, I don’t know if you are actually a Fireman or not but the Community billboard at the Fire Staion accross from the middle school was actually the first casualty of the existing sign ordinance. It used have a different saying weekly and was a community announcment board but it had to go to “set the example” The Fireman in charge of it retired and still lives in town and I know all the old timers miss it.
When resources are dwindling I have to ask “Don’t you have anything better to do”?
Or is the City Council so hell bent on seeing Tahoe become a ghost town?
Driving through town and seeing the vacant buildings and creeping blight is enough to give me a haunting feeling.
As for TRPA ruling on signs.. what do signs have to do with keeping the Lake clear? Should not be their business to be in businesses business.