Apparently size does matter. Hattiesburg City Councilman Carter Carroll motioned in favor of Jackson Hewitt’s appeal to the city council over the planning commission’s unfavorable sign ordinance ruling. Mr. Bill Jones, representing the owner of the property, Mr. Gale York operator of the Jackson Hewitt franchise, along with Fred Windham of Windham Signs went before the board to appeal the decision by the land code department. The issue stems back when the city annexed 6051 Highway 98W in 2003. At that time the current sign representing the business complex was non conforming to the current city sign code, but was “grandfathered” by the council at that time.
Subsequently Mr Gale York, operator of Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, reduced the height of his sign by 6 inches; then recently attempted to replace that sign with a newer one that was the size of the original. The planning commission’s formal position, based on the code in place, was that any non conforming signs that moved closer to conformity could not regress back to less conformity. Carter Carroll said that he wanted to err on the side of business in this situation with regard to the “grandfathering” and given the minuteness of the change. The board voted to approve their appeal in the April 17th council meeting, allowing Mr. York to restore the panel to the original size. The video of the appeal can be seen below. The appellant appears at 3:21 in the first video.
Day One “The Appeal”
[FMP width=”450″ height=”253″]https://mississippimedianetwork.com/wp-content/Video/Edited-Council-Video/jackson-hewitt-day-one.flv[/FMP]
Day Two “The Victory”
[FMP width=”450″ height=”253″]https://mississippimedianetwork.com/wp-content/Video/Edited-Council-Video/Jackson-Hewitt-Hattiesburg-Sign-Victory.flv[/FMP]