BUENA PARK : Task Force to Study Campaign Sign Law

With less than three months until the Nov. 6 election, the City Council this week decided against loosening restrictions on where candidates can place campaign signs. Instead, the council sent the politically charged issue back to the drawing board.

The council agreed to form a task force that will include council members Don Griffin and Donna L. Chessen and representatives of the city’s legal staff to take another look at the issue. The committee is expected to make public its findings next month.

Griffin objected to provisions allowing signs to be placed in city-owned parkways without adjacent property owners’ consent. The loosened restrictions also would allow candidates to put up their placards more than 30 days prior to the election.

Griffin said that the changes would be a “disgrace” because signs would be going up all over the city.

However, Assistant City Atty. Andrew Arczynsky told the council that the current restrictions are unconstitutional because political signs are the purest form of freedom of speech. Both political and non-political signs must be treated the same, he said.

Along with political signs, the task force also will review proposed restrictions on real estate signs.

Members of the Buena Park/Cypress/La Palma Board of Realtors, who helped the Planning Commission draft the revisions, came to the meeting Monday to show their support of a proposed ordinance that would restrict the number of open-house signs that can be placed on a property while it is being sold. It also limits the number of hours and days that the signs can be put up.

The task force is expected to make its recommendations at the Sept. 17 council meeting.