OKC puts sign code update on pause after ACLU threatens lawsuit
An update to Oklahoma City's code regulating signs has been delayed over First Amendment and artistic freedom concerns, city officials confirmed Tuesday.
The approval has been put on pause for at least this calendar year, after the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern over the city's banning of temporary signs in rights-of-way. City Planning Director Geoff Butler said the prohibition has been in place for years, but the legal organization said the proposed sign ordinance update is more restrictive than before.
"We have reviewed the Proposed Sign Code," the ACLU wrote in a September letter. "We have grave concerns that it broadly and unconstitutionally bans freestanding signs that candidates, campaign supporters, and political and social activists for decades have placed on street corners, roadsides, and medians across Oklahoma City, and that the Tenth Circuit held ... to be protected speech in the public square."
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The organization said it is prepared to file a federal lawsuit if the city passes the proposed ordinance as written, but it would be willing to work with the city to craft narrower restrictions accounting for safety and aesthetics.
The current code bans any political, social, civic or charitable signs placed on "any boulevard, street, parkway, park road, or park under the control of the City." The proposed update bans any freestanding sign on any right-of-way.
The ACLU is comparing the ban to the city's panhandling ordinance the civil rights group successfully challenged in 2015, which was ruled unconstitutional. The court recognized in that case, McCraw v. City of Oklahoma City, "that freestanding political signs on medians are part of a 'long tradition of expressive activity that make Oklahoma City public ways traditional public (forums) that cannot be closed by 'government fiat,'" the ACLU Oklahoma chapter wrote in an October letter.
ACLU chapters across the nation have challenged similar bans in other states and cities, including Alaska where the state agreed to allow "small, temporary, political campaign signs" on private property. Previously, no signs could be placed within 660 feet of a state-owned roadway's right-of-way.
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The code update, which has been underway since 2020 and was originally scheduled for a vote by council Tuesday, is a move by the city to improve community appearance. The proposal also allows the city to remove dilapidated signs, places limits on billboards in certain zoning districts, contains new restrictions for electronic signs in neighborhoods and incentivizes ground signs over pole signs.
OKC artists want even less mural regulation
Local artists also have raised issue with the city's regulation of murals, Butler said. This is also not a new issue, and the proposed sign code update allows for more text in a mural when deemed appropriate by the Arts Commission. The current ordinance limits murals to containing only 10% text, in order to distinguish art from advertising.
This regulation is meant to prevent abuse of the sign code, Butler said. If there were no regulations, "somebody could paint ... a 6,000-square-foot sign and claim it was a mural," Butler said.
When developing the proposed update, the city met with a variety of focus groups, including artists, but Butler said some that the city has not heard from have recently reached out.
The city plans to meet with those concerned and see what can be done, but Butler said he couldn't speculate on what, if any, changes would be made to the proposed sign code before it comes back to the city council.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: ACLU threatens OKC with a lawsuit over a ban on right-of-way signs
