On a 4-3 vote (Loomis, Carter & Kunisch "No") the Council last night agreed to continue the $1000 annual fee for all real estate agencies that wish to use "open house" signs as part of their advertising.
There's more to the story. First of all, as best as could be determined (by the town) Oro Valley is the ONLY municipality in all of Arizona that allows these signs in right of ways.
Secondly, after Bill Garner asked for the history of the open house sign fees, the following was uncovered:
The fee was ONLY $20 going back to 1985, until 2003. In 2003, the existing council (Johnson, Rochman, Wolff, Abbott & Loomis) raised the fee to $1000.
Only one problem.
It wasn't until a new planner came on board, (replacing one that was terminated) that it was determined that Oro Valley was ONLY collecting the $20 fee----a shortfall of $980 per permit. An annual average of 13.68 permits were given out in that time frame, so you can see, the town "lost" quite a bit of revenue.
Congrats to Bill for having the wherewithal to get to the bottom of this. Also,congrats to Council Members Barry Gillaspie,Salette Latas & Pat Spoerl who joined Bill to rectify this shortcoming.
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