Council calls for maximum enforcement of city sign ordinance
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

Glen Becerra 'I don't want to change the rules, I just want to enforce them.'

Facing its first major test since going into effect back in July, the city's new sign ordinance is failing, according to mayor pro tem Glen Becerra, in part because of violators who he says have found a detour around the system.

"What's happening now-because we're not enforcing it on the weekends-there are candidates out there and commercial people out there who put the signs up on Friday knowing that if the call complaining about the sign came in, they wouldn't even start to process it until Monday," Becerra said. "They're putting (signs) up everywhere, including in the publicrightof-way, knowing they'll at least have their signs up all weekend."

Becerra brought up his concerns at this week's City Council meeting, calling for maximum enforcement of the sign ordinance, which prohibits all signs in the public-right-of-way and requires written permission to put signs on private commercial property.

"I don't want to change the rules, I just want to enforce them. I want us out on the weekend enforcing this," Becerra said. The rest of the council agreedand directed city staff to begin maximum enforcement, which would include having some public works employees work weekendsBecerra said the cost of paying overtime is worth it to see the ordinance, which was passed with a 50 vote back in June, properly enforced.

"It's unfortunate because of the actions of candidates out there who aren't obeying the rules, and/or don't know the rules-which we're going to fix-that we would have to do that," Becerra said. "But in fairness, and to give the community what it wanted, which is to get rid of the clutter, then that's what we need to do."

The council also ordered staff to devise a plan to invite in all of the candidates running for office in the Simi Valley area-including park board, school board, county supervisor's race and even councimembers themselves-to city hall so that they can read the rules of the sign ordinance and sign a piece of paper acknowledging that they hadThis way, Becerra said, no candidate can use ignorance as an excuse to intentionally disobey the ordinance, which he said he believes some are already doing.

"Then we'll know going forward," the mayor pro tem said, "anyone who is doing this is doing it despite what the community wants."

Mayor Paul Miller echoed Becerra's frustrations over the apparent lack of respect being paid to the new ordinance.

"It is my hope that all candidates who seek public office are willing to obey the law. We hope they are all law-abiding citizens," Miller said.

In addition to removing unwanted clutter, Becerra said he feels there is another reason it is important to enforce the new ordinance, especially during election time.

"The candidate who goes out and has signs on all these people's front lawns, that means they've got local support because they've had to ask permission from that home owner. And I think it's important for the community to know that," he said.

"But to have somebody be able to pilfer that perception of support by throwing their sign up knowing it's not going to get taken down for five days-that's disingenuous. This community deserves better."

For more information regarding temporary sign regulations, call (805) 583-6769 to request a brochure or to speak with city planning staff.