Proposed Sign Law Change: Opposing Views—Statement Against by Cooperstown Trustee Joseph Membrino

‘No Legislation in Isolation’

Thank you to all who participated in the discussion of the banner proposal and sign law amendment to authorize the installation of commemorative banners on Village streets. This will be the Board of Trustees’ fourth meeting on this topic. In the first three meetings we heard from proponents and opponents of the proposal and sign law amendment. Today we received a packet of more than 60 support letters, the majority of which were from non-residents of Cooperstown.

Tonight, we are responsible for deciding whether to amend the village sign law.

I have carefully considered the public comments on this issue and appreciate the interest and depth of feeling that it has generated.

On the screen are photographs of Cooperstown’s military service monuments. There are five of them: one at the County Seat on Main Street commemorating the Civil War; a grouping of three at the north end of Pine Boulevard in memory of World War I service; at the south end of Pine Boulevard, a monument commemorating service and sacrifice in all our country’s wars; and the Vietnam Robert Atwell memorial in Lakefront Park. The memorial to Robert Atwell expresses the nobility of service and the tragedy of war through the life and death of one son of Cooperstown. The Atwell memorial was erected during my tenure as trustee; I voted in favor of it. All these memorials are in public spaces that foster quiet contemplation and remembrance.

In visiting them recently, I tried to put myself in the time and place of those who erected the Civil War and World War I memorials. Did they then believe that war, at last, was behind them?

Some may have noticed that the World War I memorial remembers those who served in the “World War.” Its bronze castings list more than 200 service men and women. Perhaps it was unimaginable then that the War to End All Wars would have a sequel, though it did, within a generation, and caused historians to rebrand the World War as merely the first.

To me the most striking and mournful monument is at the south end of Pine Boulevard, directly across Main Street from the Civil War monument. It concedes that there may never be a time when we erect the last memorial for the final war. That monument instead stands for all “Cooperstown area men and women who served in their country’s wars.” The monument is a timeless reminder of the ongoing sacrifice of “their today for our tomorrow.” With grace, dignity, and endurance, it bears witness to the awful truth of war’s human toll.

I urge all to visit Cooperstown’s military monuments and reflect on the gifts of service and sacrifice that they represent.

Against the backdrop of these memorials by which Cooperstown honors military service, and for the following reasons, I oppose amending the village sign law as proposed in the pending motion.

First, each of us on this board has the title of trustee. We are fiduciaries, sworn to care for the public interest and rule of law, including the safety, health, comfort, and general welfare of Cooperstown’s inhabitants, the protection of their property and businesses, and the preservation of peace and good order in our public spaces.

Second, we trustees, and our predecessors, are stewards of the village’s home rule authority that is protected by state law. Trustees have used that right of self-determination and self-governance on behalf of the village to design, enact, and implement legislation to fulfill the Village’s governmental responsibilities. Our village laws are compiled in the clerk’s office and are available for all to review. They are also published online at our village website.

Third, trustees do not enact legislation in isolation. Our village has 13 boards and committees on which approximately 60 village residents serve, as the trustees do, without compensation. Decisions on what laws to enact and how they are written and administered are informed by the work of the village’s boards and committees, and the public. This is true of our sign law, which ensures the right of free speech, provides for commercial advertising, and protects vehicular and pedestrian safety by limiting visual clutter and discouraging distracted driving. Our law does all of this while caring for Cooperstown’s rich history, scenic streets, businesses, museums, religious institutions, and landscapes, all of which benefit residents and visitors from around the nation and across the world. The Planning Board, in independent deliberations, reached a reasoned decision to recommend that the trustees not approve the proposed sign law amendment. The Planning Board’s recommendation, appropriately, has weighed heavily in my review of this matter.

Fourth, the village recognizes the activities of non-profit, charitable organizations whose activities center in and whose headquarters are in the village as well as the towns of Otsego, Middlefield, Springfield, and Hartwick. In support of those activities, the village—at considerable expense—designed, constructed, and services two sets of display poles on Main Street. The poles can accommodate banners that traverse Main Street at a height sufficient to avoid any hazard to vehicles and pedestrians and at the same time inform residents and visitors of the good works ongoing in our communities. The village has adopted criteria and an application process for displaying banners. A banner commemorating military service, in my view, could be designed to meet the display criteria for periodic use of the banner poles.

Fifth, instead of taking their turn to use the village banner poles, proponents of the sign law amendment seek installation of banners throughout residential neighborhoods without limit. The proposed amendment arbitrarily and invidiously designates certain village streets for the banner displays. That should be unacceptable by itself, but it gets worse. When asked at a previous Board of Trustees meeting about how banner siting would occur, a banner proponent answered “first come, first served” and “if we run out of space” on the streets identified in the law “we will get more streets.”

Sixth, if an amendment is made to the sign law to accommodate this banner project, the amendment will open previously restricted public space and infrastructure to all who satisfy the criteria for displays on our two Main Street banner poles. In other words, it would be unlawful for the proposed amendment to be for the exclusive benefit of those promoting military service banners. For example, qualifying nonprofit groups seeking the end of gun violence, advocating policies to address climate change, or promoting racial reconciliation will be entitled to a meaningful opportunity for banner display permits. However, the military service banner proponents have expressed an expectation of an indefinite, renewable entitlement to all the display spaces that the amendment would authorize.

Seventh, the proposed amendment would place an administrative burden on the village associated with official review and decision making on successive and, at times, competing banner display applications. That process could well lead to costly conflict and demands for additional legislation.
For these reasons, I will vote against the amendment to the village sign law and urge my fellow trustees to vote against it as well.