The Marshall County Commissioners opened a public hearing Monday morning to take comments on a change in the county’s zoning ordinance pertaining to election signs.
Plan Director Ty Adley explained that the change falls under Article 6 under Signs and Articles of Expression.
Adley said the current ordinance states that signs cannot be posted until 30 days prior to the event of the election, the size of the sign, the sign cannot be illuminated and they need to stay out of the public right-of-way.
“Indiana Code had recently gone through some amendments associated with number of days that it can go out ahead of time which is, essentially, 60 now so it’s doubled leading up to the election itself,” explained Adley. “That was kind of one of the big changes under the ordinance. So, what we proposed was amending our existing ordinance to come in conformance with the Indiana Code that our legislators put together.”
Signs would also need to be removed within seven days following the election, which is an additional change.
Adley noted that this change will be for Marshall County zoning and does not apply to any town or city zoning ordinances.
The Technical Review Committee and Plan Commission members gave a favorable recommendation to present to the commissioners for their consideration for approval.
Jesse Bohannon had questions concerning political signs and messaging, but Adley stressed that the zoning has no jurisdiction on the right of the freedom of speech, simply the placement and design and structure of the sign. Regarding the regulation of all signs, Adley said political signs are otherwise treated the same as any sign and follows zoning ordinances.
There were no other public comments.
Following the public hearing, the commissioners approved the ordinance change on the first reading and then they voted to suspend the rules and approve the ordinance on second and third readings to adopt the ordinance.
