Woods Council Doesn't Support Return of Fee

The Grosse Pointe Woods City Council did not support a motion by Councilwoman Lisa Pinkos Howle Monday to refund $150 to each of the business owners that appealed to the city in January to keep their neon signs. 

Pinkos Howle said the refund would have been a gesture of goodwill toward the businesses in the Woods. Each paid a $150 fee, totaling $1,200, for their appeal to be heard before the city council. 

The appeals hearings were held one after the other during a formal city council meeting and each was denied with limited to no discussion except for Pinkos Howle's attempt to save each one. 

The way in which the appeals were handled upset business owners to the point they banded together and gathered more than 2,000 signatures from registered voters to put the neon sign ban on the November ballot for general election. The owners felt the appeals were not seriously considered and much of the decision was made before the actual hearing happened. 

City council overturned the ban before the signature campaign concluded and neon officially become legal again in the Woods later this week. Business owners have turned their lights back on and the city promised to not enforce the ban, however. 

Pinkos Howle made the motion but it gained no support and therefore died. 

In other business, the Woods Council approved a request by the city treasurer/comptroller Dee Ann Irby to travel to Florida to speak at a pension seminar. Mayor Robert Novitke said the trip would not cost the city money as the organization that invited Irby is paying for her flight and accommodations. It will only cost the city Irby's time, he said. 

"This is almost an honor," Novitke said of Irby being asked to speak before another organization about pensions.