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Cold Spring's New Sign Law Ruled Unconstitutional
by Michelle Woods
U. S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon has declared Cold Spring Village's new sign law unconstitutional, though solely on the basis that anyone who wishes to place a sign in the Historic District of the Village would have to wait longer than three days for a decision on their application for a permit. In response, the Village Board officially revoked the law at their July 24, 2007 weekly workshop.
At the workshop, the Board agreed to change the law to satisfy Judge McMahon's position, with a view to overhauling the law at a future date, starting with a public workshop on August 14th at 7pm. Trustee Ed Mancari noted that the three-day notification process was "clearly the lone constitutional defect," but the Board was divided as to whether to go back to the original sign law and change the timeframe of notification (from 45 days to 3 days) or to their new sign law and explicitly state that notification will be given within three business days. The Board noted that the Judge's decision would make it difficult for the Architectural and Historic District Review Board to give rulings on signs, as they meet monthly.
Trustee Karen Dunn argued that the Village needed a law "that simply addresses the time" factor in giving permission to sign applications and said that "I don't think we should spend a lot of time debating a new one if we want safeguards quickly." Trustee Seth Gallagher agreed saying that "I want [a law] that gets us by" but was insistent that the Board stick to the new version of the law, which made explicit provisions for the allowance of a certain square footage of temporary non-commercial signs without need of a permit (i.e. political signs). Trustee Mancari suggested that "we need the State to give us some direction" on the law and Seth Gallagher also suggested the Board get "fresh eyes" to look at the legal aspects. The Board will debate provisions of a new law on August 14 at the public meeting.
The discussion on sign law was preceded by a presentation by Bowne Management Systems on the final report on the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Needs Assessment. Funded by the New York State Archives and Records Administration (NYSARA), the report focused on how to introduce a system of data collection to aid Village government departments, which works on GIS software similar to Google Earth and MapQuest (i.e. digital maps that generate stored data). Mr. Kenneth J. Pennock from Bowne stated that Village data which was now stored in individual non-networked department computers in Microsoft Word or Excel files could be shared and could allow for the "referencing [of] data in a geographic manner."
Pennock argued that "80% of government data is location-based" so would suit this sort of software and noted that Village Departments currently do not have a centralized "data warehouse" where they could go to access data input by the various departments. He gave a couple of examples: one of the Fire Department being able to click on a map of the Village to find out which fire hydrants in the Village were more than 60 years old and to spatially see the information; and the second of the Building Department being able to see the status of building permits at their geographical location and being able to send out form letters as a result.
The Report suggested that the Village apply for second phase funding from NYSARA's Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund to buy two computers, two printers and a GPS recording device to allow for professional-grade mapping. One computer would be accessible at the Village Office, and would carry licensed GIS software from ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.) as would a second computer. Free downloadable and compatible software could be put on the other Village computers, allowing for data to be input and transferred to the central system. Local data would be input by the various Departments and managed by a GIS coordinator and committee. Mr. Pennock noted that a lot of topographical information was readily available on State agency and university websites. In response to Trustee Teagle's question as to why the State was interested in funding such a system, Mr. Pennock said that NYSARA was interested in collating "active records" from municipalities.
The Village Board meets in a weekly workshop every Tuesday at 7:30pm, except on the second Tuesday of the month when they meet at 7:30pm for their monthly meeting.
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