EUREKA SPRINGS -- Last Thursday night, one Planning commissioner's reach exceeded the grasp of the majority of members at the table.

The agenda item "Discuss sign ordinance violation," added to the agenda by Commissioner Lany Ballance, elicited much heated discussion.

The item was in response to an incident that happened on May 20 during the city election in which Ordinance 2051, the taxi ordinance, failed by a vote of 439 to 271.

A citizen had displayed an inflatable sign advocating against the ordinance on a trailer attached to his car, in the parking facility atop Planer Hill where it could be seen by passing traffic. The citizen paid the required parking fee.

Ballance argued since city signage rules prohibit both inflatable and mobile signage, the law had been broken and wanted the issue discussed at the table.

Signage violation moot now

Commissioner Butch Berry suggested the issue was moot, since the sign was no longer on Planer Hill.

"I mean, am I missing something?" he asked.

"Perhaps," Ballance said, "it would be appropriate for me to move to write a formal note to our chief of police to familiarize himself with our codes and enforce appropriately."

No commissioners seconded the motion.

Commissioner Ken Pownall pointed out since signage enforcement lay outside the jurisdiction of the commission, for it to file a complaint would in effect be the city filing a complaint against itself.

"Maybe there needs to be," said Pownall, "but there's nothing I can find in city code giving us the authority to go out and police what's going on in this town."

Commissioner James Morris said while he realized ordinances needed enforcing, he personally wasn't interested in being in the role of policeman.

Revised rules for electing officers

Discussion was partially postponed on suggested changes to be made to Planning's rules and regulations by Pownall.

Pownall did touch on one of the key issues needing clarifying in the commission's rules, specifically the rules pertaining to election of new officers.

As it's now written, the commission elects new officers only at the beginning of the year.

The rules have no procedure in place for a situation such as occurred when Planning Chair Ed Leswig left the commission earlier this year.

"When you have a person sitting," Pownall said, "and their term is about to expire, there's nothing in the codes to tell them how to act."

He pointed out as the rules now stand, someone could leave the table at the end of the last meeting of their term, but unless they had made arrangements ahead of time of some sort, they were technically still a member of the commission de facto, meaning "in practice" or "in actual fact."

"And if they showed up three months later, they'd still be on," Pownall said.

The commission decided to postpone the rest of the discussion until its September meeting so all commissioners could get hard copies of the changes suggested by Pownall.

Tree cut rules need tweaking

Pownall said the Tree Committee was still working on its latest revision of rules for tree cuts.

Issues involved in revising the code for tree removal include the reasons the applicants want to remove their trees.

As Pownall pointed out, there is a difference between a home owner wanting to remove a dead tree because it threatens his house, and someone who wants to put in a deck and has an otherwise healthy tree in the way.

In addition, he said there was yet another distinction to be made when someone wanted to clear out inferior trees that were blocking the growth of other trees.

Morris suggested tree cut permit fees might be waived in the case of dead tree removal, where the applicant would possibly also be having to pay a tree removal service in addition to the fee.

Pownall also suggested a moratorium on tree cuts at certain times of the year, pointing out it is difficult for anyone besides an arborist to tell if a tree is really dead or not in the middle of the winter.

In the end, the commission decided to schedule a joint meeting with the Tree Committee to iron out these issues.

Brief BOZA

In its Board of Zoning Adjustment phase, the commission set a public hearing for Sept. 11 for a side yard set-back variance at 4045 E. Van Buren for Manish R. Patel.