The Brown County Area Plan Commission has put off making any changes to its sign ordinance until January after concerns were raised about it possibly being unconstitutional.

Planning Director Chris Ritzmann approached the commission during a work session Dec. 20 with concerns from the commission’s lawyer, David Schilling. He told her that a 9-0 ruling by the U.S. Supreme court last summer leaves the county open for lawsuits that could cost in the neighborhood of $1 million.

The ruling stated that any ordinance regulating the content of signs is a violation of the First Amendment, according to a September 2015 release by the National Association of Counties.

Schilling could not be present for the Dec. 20 meeting. Ritzmann presented the APC with a copy of the ordinance that he had highlighted, showing portions that needed to be removed to comply.

Parts of the ordinance make distinctions as to how directional signs and temporary signs are handled as opposed to other types of signs. Those are among the portions he marked.

The ruling comes from Reed v. Town of Gilbert, in which the Rev. Clyde Reed sued the town because it treated signs giving directions to his itinerant church differently from other short-term signs.

Audience member Jim Schultz said revising the ordinance seemed like a huge job to tackle all at once.

“It also reeks of political correctness in your sign placement, which is another aspect of government overreach,” said APC member Paul Navarro.

Audience member Chris Ross said she anticipated the Supreme Court ruling would likely be challenged in the future, and that the county should do as little as possible rather than completely changing the ordinance.

Ritzmann said the county could still regulate the number of signs per property, the size, shape and lighting of signs and other aspects. The only thing the Supreme Court has said violates free speech is regulating the actual content of a sign.

“The danger, of course, is that if you sit back and wait to be sued about this, by that point it will probably be too late,” the NACO release quotes Minnesota lawyer John Baker as saying.

The APC decided to not take action on the ordinance until Schilling could be present to advise them. The next regular APC meeting is Tuesday, Jan. 24.

County revises pay plans for office workers, again

The Brown County Commissioners have revised their plan to alter the way office workers are paid.

The commissioners had decided in November to change the work week for county office workers to 35 hours instead of 40 to account for unpaid lunch breaks, but they have now reversed that decision, said county commissioner Diana Biddle.

Currently, county office workers are paid for 40 hours, including a one-hour paid lunch each day.

Most county office workers stay in the office and eat at their desks while they continue to work, Biddle said. However, all of them have the option to leave the building completely during that hour, and some do.

The 35-hour work week would have had office workers keeping the same hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., but they would not have been allowed to remain at their desks during lunch.

Biddle said that the change was proposed over concerns that the current policy might violate laws against “ghost employment,” or paying people for time they are not working.

In order to prevent lowering the annual pay of the office workers, the hourly rate would have to be increased for those on the 35-hour schedule, Biddle said. However, there are other office workers around the county who do not currently take a paid lunch, such as at the highway department.

Ultimately, it would have created too many problems to have people at the same pay grades making different hourly wages, Biddle said.

Biddle said in discussion with the county council Dec. 19 that the county could consider giving office workers an unpaid lunch hour and extend the hours of county offices to 5 p.m.