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On Tuesday night, the Eureka City Council unanimously voted to adopt an amendment to the city’s signage ordinance that would limit the number and brightness of digital billboards within the coastal zone.

The amendment to the city’s zoning code — which was adopted by all present council members, though Councilmember Scott Bauer was absent — would have to be fully adopted at the council’s Sept. 20 meeting, and several councilmembers acknowledged the amendment is imperfect but allows the city to regulate digital signage in some capacity until it can further narrowly legislate the billboards.

“If it were up to us today, I would prefer that we ban all digital signs. I don’t think that they have a place in our city. However, that is something that can’t be done. Currently, if we do not pass this ordinance, my understanding is that people will have a year to start working on getting these signs in and we won’t really have a lot of regulations,” Councilmember Kim Bergel said.

The ordinance applies to all signs within the coastal zone, with exceptions for real estate signs, but the council focused on the aspect regarding digital signage.

Councilmember Natalie Arroyo said she wished to exclude digital signage from the coastal zone, but that this ordinance was currently the best option and she hopes to revisit the issue when the city’s local coastal program is updated.

If the council did not approve the ordinance at the meeting and wanted to revise the language, it would have been sent back to the California Coastal Commission, a process which could take six months

“The Coastal Commission recommended that the city rethink allowing digital signs, citing concerns about light glare, coastal resource protections, and driver distraction. As noted in the staff report, while the ordinance limits signs in certain zones more than was originally proposed by the city, moving forward, the ordinance as approved by the commission, the city will no longer need to enforce outdated and even more restrictive sign regulations, which were actually developed in the 1960s,” Kristen Goetz, a Eureka city planner, said.

The meeting also featured a presentation and discussion regarding Eureka’s contract with Eddy Alexander, a Virginia-based marketing agency, to help the city brand itself and attract tourists.

A presentation by Jennifer Eddy, president and chief strategist with Eddy Alexander, outlined several initiatives to boost tourism in the city and reviewed previous successes.

“The big picture message here tonight is that gas prices have slowed some visitation a bit. June numbers were a little bit down year over year, and I think that’s for a couple of reasons. One, gas prices were astronomically high in June and we saw a slowdown in travel in general, when compared to previous months,” Eddy said.

However, Eddy noted that, while Eureka is seeing less tourism, visitors have tended to spend more money in the city per trip than previous averages.

The full meeting can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xob_y7su2x8.

Jackson Guilfoil can be reached at 707-441-0506.

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