Camarillo Weighs Law to Ban Signs : Policy: Revised ordinance would target real estate and political messages on public property, but would not affect private landowners.

In a move to balance enforcement and further reduce visual clutter in the city, Camarillo officials are considering strengthening an ordinance to ban real estate and political signs posted on public property and rights of way.

If a revised ordinance is brought before the City Council later this summer, the traditional “Vote for Me,” “Open House This Way” and “Yard Sale Today” messages would be uniformly made illegal and banned.

Private property owners, however, would still be allowed to post all the signs they want on their property.

Meeting earlier this month, the council’s Policy and Procedures Committee directed staff members to tighten the anti-sign ordinance so that real estate sale and open house signs would be banned along public streets, roads and rights of way, according to City Manager Bill Little.

Little said the sign issue surfaced recently when Councilman Ken Gose questioned why campaign signs were routinely being torn down while real estate signs were left untouched by city work crews.

“We’ve had an anti-sign ordinance on the books for years, but we’ve never been tough about enforcing the ordinance when it came to real estate signs,” Little said. Gose could not be reached for comment Friday.

Councilwoman Charlotte Craven, a member of the committee, said she does not have a problem with either type of roadside sign.

“We’ve been advised by our city attorney that if we allow political and realty signs, we would also have to allow commercial signs if someone really wanted to press us,” Craven said. “In the end, I’d rather have unhappy realtors and politicians than unhappy residents.”

Little said he has asked City Atty. Bob Flandrick to modify the current ordinance and to bring back a document that clarifies and toughens the city law.

“It essentially is a First Amendment issue,” Little said. “We have to enforce this ordinance uniformly or not at all. It’s also a matter of fairness.”

Officials said the revised ordinance would be akin to an ordinance Moorpark adopted last year. It bans both political and real estate signs from being posted on public property.

But the idea of restricting real estate agents’ abilities to post signs to direct potential customers to a certain residence is not particularly welcomed, according to Anne Geib, an 18-year veteran real estate agent in Camarillo.

“When we are dealing with open houses, we rely heavily on these signs,” Geib said. “If we can’t put them up any longer, it will seriously affect our ability to market a property.”

Geib, chairwoman of the education committee of the Camarillo Assn. of Realtors, said news of the ban was surprising.

“I think we have been good at policing ourselves on the signs,” Geib said. “Most of the agents I know are very careful to remove a sign following an open house.”

Carol Nordahl, executive director of the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber has not taken a formal position on the matter, but hopes to soon meet with officials to hammer out a possible compromise that would allow agents to continue to post the signs in some fashion.

“It’s our hope that we can reach some sort amicable solution that will prevent a total ban of these signs,” Nordahl said. “If this goes into effect, it’s really going to hurt our realtors in town.”