Garage sale signs topic contested by Willamina residents
By Marguerite Alexander
Correspondent, The Sun
Garage sale signs, stop signs and signs that the city has established good internal controls for its finances were all topics discussed by the Willamina City Council at the Aug. 26 work session.
With garage sale season still in full swing, the discussion as to whether the city should adopt a policy regulating garage sales and the signs used to advertise them drew the most debate. Coming up with a way to get people to remove the signs after the sale—not regulating how many signs and of what size—was the biggest concern.
Jack Wymore said he saw no need to regulate residents to two signs in their yard when they were having a sale. “You don’t need to have a sign in your yard—people can see you’re having a sale,” he said.
Geneva Spees told the council that placing a limit of two directional signs per sale is not adequate in Willamina. “It’s going to take six signs to get to my house,” she said.
Fining people for putting up too many signs when they are trying to make a little money from a garage sale would also not go over well. “I wouldn’t want to get a fine for $180 for putting up five signs,” Spees told the council.
Regulating yard sale signs could have an adverse affect—people parking their cars downtown with signs placed in the vehicles—the council was told.
The council decided to modify the wording of the ordinance to eliminate the clause regulating signage on the property where the sale is being held and eliminate the number limitation on the directional signs.
Regardless of what the final draft of the city’s garage sale ordinance will look like, one thing is clear: PGE does not want signs stapled, nailed, screwed, thumb tacked or attached in any other manner to their utility poles—not even by the city.
“It’s a safety issue with them,” City Manager Sue Hollis told the council. Instead, the city needs to be placing signs on barricades.
Hollis encountered the same issue with yard sale signs when she was working for the City of Dayton. In that case the city allowed residents to use the city right of way to place stakes in the ground with yard sale signs as long as they did not obstruct vision. “It was fairly successful,” she added.
“That’s not a bad idea,” agreed Councilor Ila Skyberg.
The one drawback in Willamina is that Main Street—Highway 18B—is a state, not a city right of way. The city cannot give permission to use that.
Hollis will prepare a final draft of the proposed yard sale ordinance incorporating the recommended changes—and a requirement of an address and date on signs—to bring back to the council on Sept. 9 to get it ready for adoption.
In response to concerns about speeding vehicles in the southeast part of town, the council reached a consensus to place stop signs on either end of Jackson Street. Plans are also continuing to place school zone signs on Washington Street.
The council ruled out the options of a three-way stop at the intersection of Washington and Jackson. “There’s other ways to slow people down,” said Mayor Vern Mosser. “You remember the speed bumps—No way!” he added.
Forensic Auditor Jerry Levey attended the city council meeting to discuss how his firm can work with the city to assure that accounting practices and internal controls are in place. Over the past six to nine months the city has implemented many of the recommended controls, he said.
Monitoring the internal controls provides protection for the employees as well as for the city by eliminating any suspicion cast on them, the forensic auditor told the council. “Some of the stuff we will be doing will be unannounced,” Levey said.
The forensic auditor recommended a quarterly review of the city’s financial system with the primary emphasis of refining what has been done and working with the office staff to identify ways to make it work better. Cost to the city: $750 to $1,000 a quarter depending on how detailed the council wanted the report to be.
“This is something I think will pay off,” Mosser said.
Levey was directed to prepare a letter outlining what he proposes to do as well as his flat fee. The letter will be reviewed by the finance committee on Sept. 1 with plans to present it to the council for consideration at the Sept. 9 meeting.
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