Council Lifts Limitations for Signs Seen from Newark Freeways

The City of Newark is moving toward allowing general billboards to be posted along its freeways as a result of a vote made at Thursday's City Council meeting.

Right now the city only allows signs that identify a building, person, firm, corporation or product to be visible from Interstate 880.

The council approved the ordinance to amend the text of its municipal code with four votes. Councilman Alberto Huezo was absent from the meeting.

The city will consider signs on a case-by-case basis through the conditional use permit process. 

Councilmembers questioned staff about the quality of the potential signs and about the process of approving non-site specific signs. City Manager John Becker said  that the quality of the signs would be reviewed when companies bring a detailed proposal to the city.

"This is just a text amendment change," said Becker, who added that the city is in preliminary talks with a company who has approached the city with interest of building such signs.

Community Development Director Terrence Grindall said the company interested in constructing the signs is proposing to build two at locations along Interstate 880 and State Route 84. The name of the company is not being disclosed at this time.

Grindall added that the signs are more likely to be digital signs that contain ads with some public service/non-profit announcements. He added that the signs will not show moving images or flash between advertisements and that staff found this move will generate revenue for the city.

Also at Thursday's council meeting:

• The board approved a resolution to its 2010-12 biennial budget to include adjustments as a result of projected shortfalls, revenue from Newark's voter-approved utility tax, proposed service restorations expenditures. Newark Patch will be publishing a separate story with more detail on this item.
• The council voted in favor of filing annual reports in regards to landscape and lighting improvement projects in various parts of the city.
• Both conditional use permits for two separate summer festivals were approved. The Tri-Cities League of Volunteers will host a circus June 17-20 at , and the Newark Chamber of Commerce will host the third annual SummerFest July 9 and 10 at the parking lot. The website for SummerFest is now live at http://newarksummerfest.com.
• All consent agenda items were approved.

To download Thursday night's agenda packet, click here.