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Signs upset Dillsboro merchants

By Rose Hooper
Sign in Dillsboro

This sign at the Dillsboro launch park may confuse visitors, Susan Leveille told the town board Monday night. "No pets, no guns, no vehicles after sunset - does that mean it's O.K. to have them before sunset?" she asked, while pointing out that signs put up by the town "have grown and grown and are becoming increasingly negative."

Dillsboro merchants want a sign from the town board - a sign of cooperation.

"As merchants we recognize the need for sign control and we applaud the sign ordinance," Merchants' Association President Andy Smith told the town board Monday night. "However, we feel that there are some attempts to control that can be improved."

He listed four of those, along with solutions.

  • 1. As a group, the merchants feel left out of the decision-making process. The solution, Smith proposed, was to add merchants to the sign committee.
  • 2. Sign regulations are inconsistently enforced. The solution would be to provide everyone with a list of fees.
  • 3. Merchants do not have any warning of infractions before fines are due. The solution is to give sufficient warnings of non-compliance.
  • 4. Several negative town signs make Dillsboro appear "unfriendly and negative to tourists," he said. The solution is for merchants to work with the sign committee to change this image.
    • "Most of the merchants comply with the sign ordinance," said Susan Leveille, owner of Oaks Gallery. "But the signs put up by the town have grown and grown and are becoming increasingly negative. On Webster Street alone, there are 11 signs, all within 300 feet, telling us all what we can't do."
    Leveille told the board she was denied the chance to put up a "more shops" sign at the railroad tracks to direct tours to her Riverwood Shop. "I was told that sign would be clutter, but now there are five town signs in that one spot."

    If the town doesn't have the expertise to construct visually pleasing signs, call in somebody who can, Leveille said.

    "Ed McMahon, who was just here telling the county about greenways projects, showed us many examples of attractive signs," she said.

    Mayor Wade Wilson turned the issue over to the sign committee, now chaired by Jim Cochran due to Jean Hartbarger's resignation. Cochran made a motion, which was approved by the board, for the chair of the merchants association to sit on the sign committee in an advisory capacity.

    Emma Wertenberger, another Dillsboro merchant, asked the town board to appoint an appearance commission to develop policy and plans and to make recommendations to the board on issues impacting appearance.

    Back to Archive: 08/10/00.