Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Hurley — The Iron County Comprehensive Planning Land and Zoning Committee Tuesday again discussed a plan to install an electronic sign at the Mercer School, and while no formal action was taken, there was a consensus that the committee would reach a decision at its next meeting.
The discussion stems from a request by Zoning Administrator Tom Bergman for the committee to clarify how it viewed the county’s prohibition of “flashing signs.” Bergman, in essence, wanted to know whether the committee viewed a flashing sign as one with rapidly changing graphics or if any electronic movement could be considered “to flash.”
The committee had discussed the issue in the past but no decision was ever made — in part, because the committee was unclear on what the Mercer sign would look like.
Mercer School District Administrator Erik Torkelson attended Tuesday’s meeting and explained the district’s vision for the sign and benefit it would provide the district.
“It would be a tremendous upgrade for the district to be able import all those event changes,” Torkelson said, “which are daily and community events and inclement weather updates and anything else that we’re trying to communicate to the entire community without physically going out and changing those letters (on the existing sign).”
He said he welcomed the committee’s regulation of what signs were allowed and clarified that the district had no intention of making the sign frequently flash.
“I’ve seen these signs when they use that flashing mode, they’re obnoxious in my opinion, and we have absolutely no intention of using that mode,” Torkelson said.
He explained there were two basic transitions the district would like to use, one of which he described as having the message “turn like a page,” and a scrolling mode.
“We have no intention, want or desire to use that mode,” Torkelson said restating his position regarding the flashing mode, “So if the (committee) would see fit to write (a prohibition of such mode) in the new ordinance, we would invite that.”
He said the committee was free to impose a requirement regarding the amount of time messages must remain on the sign to ensure they don’t change too frequently and that they could also restrict the sign’s usage at night.
The decision to wait until the next meeting before giving Bergman a position on the clarification will provide the town of Mercer the opportunity to meet and provide input on the issue if they desire.
In other action:
—The committee approved sending a proposed budget to the county board of supervisors finance committee. The budget is largely the same as last year’s, Bergman said, with the exception that there was a pay increase for Erika Roeder to reflect her additional duties and responsibilities.