After more than a year of work by the Damariscotta Planning Board and months of wrangling to make sure that the new ordinance would pass legal muster, Damariscotta will now have a sign ordinance to consider at town meeting in June.

Town Planner Anthony Dater had once remarked that sign ordinances are among the most contentious items a town can consider, and Damariscotta’s ordinance was no exception. The final approved version was the seventeenth draft.  Sign rules had been written into the town’s site use plan, but the ordinance goes far beyond that.  Several issues were involved, including economic development versus nighttime light pollution, especially along the Route 1B corridor beyond the downtown area, where some businesses are anxious to use signage, not only to identify themselves, but as an advertising tool.

Because there are still residences in the area that could be affected by light encroachment, concessions were made to make sure that changeable signs would be turned down to 50 percent of maximum overnight. Another question that arose during the Planning Board’s discussions was a Supreme Court decision that made signs a free speech issue.

Two citizens spoke up at the public hearing about nighttime signage, questioning why signs couldn’t be turned off, instead of turned down, between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. One of them was Shari Sage, a member of the Planning Board, who had been outvoted on the question during the process.

In the end, the draft passed the Board of Selectmen unanimously, and will be voted on town meeting on June 15.

The board also considered the use of a non-parking space where a business has a dumpster in the municipal lot. Town Manager Matt Lutkus said that he had spoken to an attorney at the Maine Municipal Association and that in order to lease the space to the business, there would have to be an agreement at town meeting to allow a contract with the Board of Selectmen. He said he would draft a warrant article. A public hearing will have to be added to the agenda for selectmen’s regular meeting on June 1 in order to make the deadline for the town warrant.