Everywhere a Sign: West Deptford Committee Debates Regs

Former Philadelphia Eagle and ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski congratulated the West Deptford High School football team on its years of success.

The township committee approved a $20,000 extension of financial consultancy services while it transitions to its new municipal financial software.

But the biggest issue to be tackled by the West Deptford government Thursday had to do with stiffened enforcement of its signage ordinances.

According to Committeewoman Denice DiCarlo, several community groups—including township athletics clubs, the Kenny Dechen Memorial motorcycle run and even the organizers of an Alex’s Lemonade Stand event—complained to her of the removal of several publicly posted signs in advance of their events.

DiCarlo asked the committee to consider a motion for West Deptford solicitor Anthony Ogozalek, Jr. and township administrator Eric Campo to revise its regulations to allow the temporary display of such materials for local groups.

(That led to a lengthy discussion about whether the committee could even consider such an impromptu action given its prior resolution to only present business that had cleared a work session; Campo said it could “with good cause.”)

Before that conversation could be had, however, DiCarlo asked the panel “how this order came about to remove these signs.”

Committeeman Sam Cianfarini said the township was simply enforcing a law on its books.

“Denice, we’ve got a longstanding [sign] ordinance in the town and a code enforcement official that we pay to enforce that code,” Committeeman Sam Cianfarini said.

“The ordinance does not make exceptions for why that type of sign was up there. We’re enforcing the law. That’s our job.”

“I guess the question is: were residents complaining?” DiCarlo said.

“There were numerous complaints,” Cianfarini said. 

“Just to you?” DiCarlo asked him.

The committee then asked the administrator whether the township had received any negative feedback from residents on the signs.

“I didn’t get any complaints,” Campo said.

'There was an easier way to handle this'

Although it may have been done in keeping with the letter of local ordinance laws, DiCarlo criticized the move to take the signs down as short-sighted.

“I have spent a lot of time talking to people that this has personally affected, and individuals who felt that there was a complete lack of compassion for the order that was given,” she said.

Chintall later said that he’d reached out to some of those whose signs were taken down “on a personal level and through e-mail” to apologize.

“You have to understand that there was an easier way to handle this,” DiCarlo said to Cianfarini. “The way I see this is that no one was complaining, [and] you made an abrupt change.”

“We took an oath here to uphold the laws of this township,” Cianfarini said. He further criticized the notion of allowing temporary displays on township property, even for township events.

“There’s numerous issues with approving something that you just put up,” Cianfarini said. “It could wreak havoc.

“My motion is to direct the solicitor to work with the administrator to amend it to temporary display,” DiCarlo said. “I’m not giving any absolutes here.”

Szymborski seconded DiCarlo's motion. It eventually passed unanimously.

Ogozalek said that he and Campo, who is also a lawyer, had talked during the week about how to approach amending the ordinance. Any changes involve "a lot of issues to figure out so it’s not abused by people,” Ogozalek said.

But he also promised to have draft language out to the committee by its next meeting.

'This is the first time this happened'

During the public comment portion of the meeting, resident Ken Boody, who sits on the West Deptford soccer club board, criticized the committee for its handling of the issue.

“Any one of you could have walked past Greg Ley’s office and asked him to please contact the groups of the township and move their signs,” Boody said.

“Soccer lost 23 signs at a cost of $6.23 per sign to replace," he said. "We’ve been putting signs up for four years now, and this is the first time that this happened.”

Boody said that when he looked up the language of the resolution, he discovered that it “doesn’t say anything about public or private property. 

“It also says there’s a permit that I need,” he said. “I couldn’t find a permit.”

Chintall apologized to Boody publically, saying that township policy is to place offending signs alongside the public works building.

He said some of the mixup could have come because several of the signs were situated on Gloucester County property.

“County’s got the right-of-way on grass,” Chintall said. “Any township employee should have placed them on the side of the building.”

After the meeting, DiCarlo reinforced her perspective that the township should have considered the spirit of the law rather than its letter in this instance, offering this analogy:

“You can’t put a sign up by a powerwashing company, but if you had your house power-washed, you can put up a sign,” she said.

“The funds from the Dechen Foundation were to raise money for high school students," DiCarlo said; "the signs were meant to advertise so our kids could play soccer.”