SGIA Journal Graphic November/December 2016 - 37

Signs, Codes and Conflicts - It's All in the Details
You should be able to rely on a city ordinance as the law to
follow when you are within the city limits. But even laws that
have been reviewed, passed and set on the books can face
challenges from stakeholders and can run afoul with state laws
all because of how the ordinance is written or more specifically
how it's applied in practice. So, it's prudent to know when there
are conflicts between two laws.
Many local sign codes go through reviews and revisions, but
in some cases the ordinance is updated and still can be found
to be in conflict with a state law or federal law. Such a conflict
can happen with any local ordinance where the city feels there
is a best interest because of a localized issue or previous language left in the code. The trouble develops in the details.
There is a common rule of thumb that when a conflict exists
between a state law and a local ordinance, the state law is
assumed to have precedence. This of course would depend
on an actual conflict as well as whether or not the state has
allowed a "home rule" provision in which local municipalities
are allowed to enact ordinances at the local level without first
seeking state permission or passing special acts.
Recently in the state of Kansas there was an issue raised
where campaign signs were being pulled because of local sign
codes restricting their placement. At the core of the issue, the
state of Kansas has a law (House Bill 2183) which overrides all
local ordinances that would ban signs in street easements.
As examples, two particular cities, Wichita and Haysville had
differing opinions on that state law. As a generally hierarchy, a
federal law on signs and outdoor advertising can dictate or at
least strongly influence state codes, and this trickles down to
effect county laws and ultimately city codes and ordinances.

But differing laws do happen and it's not always clear which
is right.
While city sign owners were placing signs within the rightof-ways, based on the new Kansas state law, city officials were
out enforcing their local ban on these signs by removing them.
Local planning and zoning officials as well as city solicitors
have to perform a balancing act to to ensure they meet the
laws best suited for their municipality as well as other state and
federal law. It really boils down to the details of how the ordinances get applied in the city.
When the City of Wichita examined their code and the state
law, the city found that there would be issues with enforceability. At the heart of their concern was the fact that the state
law placed different requirements on political signs versus
other type of signs. That alone conflicts with the federal
requirement (under the SCOTUS decision of 2014) that sign
codes must be "content neutral". In other words, the rules for
signs must be applied equally and not based on the content of
the sign message.
For Haysville, the city knew their sign ordinance did not pass
the "content neutral" test as it had different requirements for
different type of messages. However, they also recognized the
state rule did not pass the same test.
When a city code finds these issues and conflicts, there
is sometimes no easy or timely solution. A city may need to
revisit the laws, all laws, and revise their ordinances to adjust their position, or the city can
address the conflict with the state authorities
and attempt to change the state rule. In either
case it can take time to resolve and for some

By Rick Hartwig, EHS Specialist - Government and Business Information, SGIA

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