The Town Council listened to comments during “call to the public” for more than an hour during its June 1 meeting as citizens asked the council to reconsider the approval of sign code revisions made during the May 18 council meeting.

The efforts of more than a dozen speakers, including Chamber CEO Betsy LaVoie, merchants and real estate professionals, may well have been for naught.

Town Attorney Aaron Arnson, responding to a question from The Times, stated that the council rules of procedure (Rule 6.6. (E)(3)) states “any councilmember who voted with the majority may move a reconsideration of any action at the same or next regular meeting.”

That means that the June 1 meeting would have been the last opportunity to take up reconsideration. Vice Mayor David Spelich did make such a motion, however, he voted with the minority at the May 18 meeting.

“The time for reconsideration has passed,” Arnson said. “At this point, any change would have to be done through a text amendment if the council wished to have an amendment brought forward.”

Another option suggested by Spelich that has been mentioned in social media is having the ordinance referred to the voters in a referendum election.

According to Town Clerk Liz Klein, an interested party has picked up a packet for a referendum petition. However, as of Wednesday morning (June 2), the party had not returned with an application for a serial number for the petition or their statement of organization. They would need both before they could begin to collect signatures.

The deadline for submitting the petitions for a referendum election would be Thursday, June 17, 30 days from the ordinance adoption on May 18. The number of signatures for the petition is based on the most recent election in which the mayor and council were elected, or the August 2020 primary, when 9,038 ballots were cast. The referendum petition would need at least 904 valid signatures to have the question placed on a future ballot, Klein said.

A complete story on the sign discussion before the council will appear in the Wednesday, June 9 edition of The Times.