I'm really confused now, here is what I found when I started looking and I'm not sure where the 1-sign rule comes from as it is not in the city or county ordinances.

PTC municipal code, Sec 66-17:

"One temporary sign per lot shall be permitted; provided, however, that an unlimited number of temporary signs are allowed during a political election, between the date of close of filing for qualification of candidates or issues and final determination on each ballot candidate or issue."

Fayette County Sign Ordinance (Nov 10, 2005):

Definition:
Temporary sign. Any sign that is not permanently mounted.

Section 2.4
"The following types of shall not count toward the total amount of signage allowed"; item #5 in the list is "Temporary signs in all districts."

So someone please help me understand where a "temporary" and in the case of PTC "election" sign is limited to 1???

I think I’ve got it figured out now.

I’ll go ahead and put multiple signs in my yard and when the sign police come by I’ll see if they figure it out.

Thanks for looking up the info.

I think we should all get together, make up tons of signs and put them in our yards. The police will be so busying pulling them up & writing tickets maybe I can get to work in a reasonable amount time

Am I the only one that thinks Fayette needs to participate in a GRTA commuter bus route?

I really want to hear what other people think.

After the judge lunches with the Commissioners, he'll let you know.

Basically, the Supreme Court decided that Judge English didn't take any evidence from the county before making up his mind on the injunction. He had decided that Coffey's complaint wasn't worthy of court protection because of the *presumed* validity of the sign ordinance.

Of course, the Supreme Court's instructions are so vague that it's hard to tell exactly how they want Judge English to rule and yes these things do seem to take forever. That's the appeals process for you.

Everybody has heard of medical malpractice. TIME magazine, in fact, had a feature article a few weeks ago about how doctors feared going to the hospital as patients, and it presented stories of doctors who sued other doctors for grievous injuries resulting from colleagues’ malpractice.

Malpractice is common. It is common among lawyers, many of whom become judges. Virtually no one describes what some lawyers and judges do as malpractice, but if they were more forthright they would. When lawyers become judges, they can engage in malpractice with impunity. It takes ridiculously expensive and time-consuming appeals to get their actions reviewed and overturned.

Sometimes the appellate court does not get it right either. (In the latest Supreme Court case reported on by The Citizen concerning the sheriff, the sheriff was referred to as Richard Johnson, instead of Randall Johnson. That leaves me perplexed.)

In this case, we are told Judge English is asked to take more evidence in support of his ruling. That’s ridiculous. It is the duty of the plaintiff to proffer evidence in support of his case. Once that’s been done, it is the duty of the defendant (here Fayette County) to proffer evidence in support of its case. The judge does not “take evidence.” It has to be offered. If it’s not offered, you don’t win.

So I don’t know who is the most incompetent in all of this. English went too far if he ruled the county’s sign ordinance was valid when there was no sufficient evidence to support it.

It was first the plaintiff’s duty to show the sign ordinance was invalid. You do that by showing it restricts free speech. That’s not hard, since it is virtually self-evident.

At that point, it becomes the county’s duty to show the sign restriction’s goals and how the ordinance represents the least restrictive means of achieving these goals. When the county commissioners adopted the ordinance, they had the benefit of legal counsel. Their counsel’s duty was to think about this and to document how this ordinance was the least restrictive means of achieving the goal sought by the ordinance (avoiding clutter, traffic accidents from sight obstruction and driver distraction, etc.).

If the county’s lawyer does not present this evidence to the court (Judge English), it’s not Judge English’s duty to take evidence. The county loses, pure and simple. That’s the price to be paid for incompetence.

In a way, the Georgia Supreme Court rewards incompetence by giving the county another bite at the apple, at the plaintiff’s expense and at the Fayette taxpayers’ expense.

This case illustrates the widespread incompetence and waste to be found within our judicial system. Nobody should shrug and say that’s the way the appeals process works. We should denounce incompetence, not tolerate it, and certainly not embrace it.

The Judicial Malpractice blog by eyinvest (and the sign case in which local Judge English will have to decide a sign ordinance case a third time) was interesting. One poster requested a translation from the legal jargon; John Munford tried to oblige. Alas, being uneducated in the law I am not entirely confident in my understanding of the proceedings. The Citizen's Editorial heading that “English ‘didn’t fully consider’ ruling, court says” is helpful. What I read from this is that the judge simply was too lazy to do his job, or too interested in the county’s position. This is the same judge who was so interested in a Hollywood game show that he took a two month hiatus from his court work, which I considered improper. Had he been retired I would not have objected. As long as we allow “ judicial malpractice” we will have judges that will further burden our country (and our taxpayers) with such evils as same sex marriage and entitlement to benefits for homosexual partners. I agree--- accountability in the courts appears to be expensive and time consuming.

concerned, try this and see if it makes more sense:

In 2004 Curtis Coffey place more than 1 sign on his property and was cited by the county for violating an ordinance that you can only have 1 on your property.

He sued the county claiming (have not read the suit, but based upon this article alone) that the ordinance violated his right to free speech by limiting his ability to place signs on his property.

In March of last year the Supreme Court reviewed Judge English's first ruling, disagreed with his ruling and told him to "try again".

He re-decided the case, siding with Coffey on some points but still stating that the 1-sign ordinance was legal and did not violate Coffey's rights.

Ths Supreme Court again reviewed this case.

Previous rulings by the GA Supreme Court have clarified that the State Constitution requires that when making laws that impede free speech that they be the "least restrictive means of achieving its goals.”

The Court decided that Judge English did not review the case closely enough to decide if the current ordinance was the "least restrictive means" to meet the county's goals.

Now Judge English gets a 3rd chance to review the case and try to make a decision in keeping with the law and the GA Constitution. If I were to editorialize for a second I would argue this was his job both times previous and the Supreme Court doesn't feel he is doing it right.

It's one thing to put a for sale sign in your yard, but everything else looks trashy. I don't have an opinion on the law (too complicated for me, really, which is why everyone is confused). I just think they look lame. Political signs have been popping up in my neigborhood lately, and they don't look good. makes the neighborhood look cheaper.

Besides, Republicans are going to win everything anyway.