Sign, sign, everywhere (an illegal) sign

Looking to buy a house? Clean your carpets? Alter your clothes? You could consult a newspaper or the Yellow Pages.

Or you could visit the intersection of Canyon Road and 160th Street East, where signs advertising these and other businesses plaster the utility poles and litter the roadside.

It’s the same story half a mile south at Canyon and Military Road. There you’ll find signs advertising new houses, town homes, junk removal, a day care center and someone’s lost pet boxer.

Most of these signs – 37 in all at or near the two intersections – are illegal. State and county laws prohibit posting commercial signs on utility poles or in the public rights of way along roads.

But signs clutter many roadsides anyway, making them harder to maintain, sometimes blocking drivers’ views and – many residents say – polluting neighborhoods.

After years of lax enforcement, Pierce County cracked down on illegal signs in 2007 and 2008. Public works employees collected more than 16,000 signs during the crackdown, and some residents noticed the difference.

But that effort ended last August amid questions about how to enforce the law and complaints the crackdown was hurting the real estate and building industries at a time of economic peril.

The County Council is pushing to restart enforcement. But public works officials say clearing signs isn’t a priority at a time of budget cuts.

Meanwhile, signs are proliferating again in unincorporated Pierce County.

“I’d say we’re back to ground zero,” said Betsy Stubbs, chairwoman of the South Hill Community Council. “The signs are coming back.”

The Canyon Road intersections at 160th Street and Military Road illustrate the problem. They were among the worst intersections in the county for illegal signs collected during the crackdown, according to a News Tribune analysis.

And recent visits to some of the county’s worst intersections show the illegal sign problem is as bad as it was before the crackdown.

WHERE THE SIGNS ARE

The newspaper analyzed a database of nearly 8,800 illegal signs county workers collected during the 2007-08 crackdown. The database – obtained from the county public works department – includes information on where and when the signs were collected.

It doesn’t include all of the signs workers collected. They didn’t enter information on thousands of signs that were flimsy or in poor condition – such as cardboard “garage sale” signs.

Still, the data show that county workers collected dozens of signs at some intersections over several visits.

During the crackdown, workers visited the Canyon Road-160th Street intersection a dozen times, collecting at least 58 signs. They visited the Canyon-Military Road intersection 13 times, collecting at least 39 signs.

Among the other intersections that attracted dozens of illegal signs: 176th Street East at 78th Avenue East (at least 61 signs collected during the crackdown), South Prairie Road at 214th Avenue East (54 signs), Sumner Buckley Highway at 214th Avenue East (53 signs) and Sehmel Drive Northwest at Burnham Drive Northwest (41 signs).

The crackdown began in July 2007 as a pilot project. In two months workers collected 4,226 signs in East Pierce County.

It worked so well the County Council set aside $168,000 in 2008 for sign enforcement countywide. Last year, workers collected another 11,923 signs.

Bruce Wagner, the county’s road maintenance manager, said the effort made a difference on county roads. After the initial sweeps, he said the number of signs collected decreased as workers revisited intersections.

Wagner said his workers “got a lot of enthusiastic feedback from people.”

BAD FOR BUSINESS?

But not everyone was enthusiastic. Local real estate agents complained the crackdown was hurting their business.

Pat Brewer, an agent with Coldwell Banker Bain Associates, said off-premises signs play a big role in guiding potential buyers to homes.

Brewer said buyers often cruise neighborhoods where they’d like to live, looking for open houses. She said the signs are helpful even if buyers already know the address of the home they’re interested in.

Brewer acknowledged that sign clutter is a problem. And she said some people in her profession put them in the wrong place, mostly out of ignorance.

But Brewer said much of the clutter is caused by “garage sale,” “weight loss” and other non-real-estate signs. And she said the county went from not enforcing the law to “over enforcing” it.

“There was a huge loss” of business, she said.

In response to those concerns, the County Council last August asked the county public works and planning departments to recommend new sign rules. It also approved interim rules permitting up to two off-premises signs during open houses.

The interim rules expire Oct. 1, when the council may revisit the issue.

In the meantime, the council earmarked another $100,000 for sign enforcement in this year’s budget. And chairman Roger Bush said enforcement remains a council priority.

“We’re not trying to destroy businesses or harm developers,” Bush said, but added, “Nobody has the right to trash or make unsafe public right of ways.”

HARD TO ENFORCE

Still, the public works department ended its sign crackdown last August. Wagner cited questions about how to enforce the law raised by the council’s August legisla-tion.

One example: whether public works employees can or should issue citations for sign code violations. Public works officials decided that issuing citations would not be cost- effective. Director Brian Ziegler said tracking down a sign’s owner and proving it was in a public right of way in court would pose “a heavy investigative burden.”

“We don’t think we could make most of our citations stick,” Ziegler said.

More recently, the department cited county budget cuts as an impediment to sign code enforcement. At a time of tight budgets, public works officials say it doesn’t make sense to spend money collecting illegal signs merely for aesthetic reasons.

“When things start to tighten up, we focus on our core mission, which is travelers’ safety,” Ziegler said. “Picking up roadside litter doesn’t rise to the level of a traffic safety concern.”

The crackdown’s end has led to friction between public works and the council.

Bush said it’s up to the council to set budget priorities, not the department. To underscore that, the council last month amended the county code to specify that the public works department’s duties include removing illegal signs from county rights of way.

The two sides appear to have worked out a compromise. Public works won’t conduct the countywide “sweeps” it performed during the crackdown. But it will target problem intersections.

“We know you can’t send (crews) out every day,” Bush said. “However, we should see progress and there should be a reduction in the signs.”

SPROUTING UP AGAIN

If they’re looking, county workers should have no shortage of signs to collect.

The News Tribune recently visited 10 intersections where crews collected dozens of signs during the crackdown. At most of those intersections, signs again clutter the roadside.

For example, there were 18 signs at or near the Canyon Road-160th Street East intersection, plus another 19 at Canyon and Military.

Not all of the signs appeared to be illegal. But the sheer number underscores residents’ concerns.

“It’s like having a junk car alongside the road,” said David Artis of the Midland Residents Association. “It’s not aesthetically nice to look at when you see sign after sign after sign.”

“Sometimes it seems like there are more signs than there are people,” he said.

David Wickert: 253-274-7341

david.wickert@thenewstribune.com

blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics