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Those Callahan's signs soon may be a changin' A court ruling will free the lodge's owners to build a lighted sign on their land By MELISSA MARTIN Mail Tribune Callahan's Lodge is eager to put up a sign to attract freeway travelers after U.S. District Court Judge John Cooney ruled Jackson County's sign ordinance unconstitutional. "We were thrilled," said Ron Bergquist, owner of Callahan's Restaurant and Lodge, located off the Mount Ashland Interstate 5 exit. The federal judge Friday struck down the Jackson County sign ordinance because it protects political speech but restricts commercial speech, said Alan Herson, the Medford attorney representing Callahan's. "The ordinance said, 'landowners, you can't put up signs, but if we commissioners want to run for election, we can put up signs,' " Herson said. The county will have to revise its ordinance as a result of Friday's ruling, said Medford attorney Benjamin Bloom, who represents Jackson County in the case. "Jackson County is disappointed in the ruling because the county believed it had a truly content-neutral ordinance," Bloom said. "What the county was trying to do with the ordinance was balance the right to free speech with the community's interest in safety, traffic control and aesthetic values." The county's sign ordinance violates the First Amendment by regulating "noncommercial speech based upon its content, giving greater protection to some noncommercial speech over other noncommercial speech," the judge wrote. The ordinance allows more political than commercial signs per lot, is vague in its definition of political signs and limits them to 60 days before an election. Size was not a factor in the ruling, Herson said. The ruling sent Bergquist to the Jackson County Planning Department Monday morning to apply for a building permit for a 70-foot sign. A planner denied his request, citing the county's 25-foot sign ordinance and stating, "There have been no changes in the sign ordinance." "They told me they hadn't heard about the judge's ruling and they would get back to me within two weeks," Bergquist said. He hopes to have the issue resolved sooner so he can order the lighted sign that will cost between $60,000 and $80,000. Once the new sign goes up, the protest sign placed on a hillside across the freeway from Callahan's goes down, Bergquist said. "We'll take the billboard down, as soon as we can get a visible sign right on the corner of our property," Bergquist said. "The billboard was there as a protest - the only thing we could do in defiance." Callahan's has had a 25-foot sign on its property for 35 years. Six years ago, Ron and Donna Bergquist bought the restaurant, remodeled it and applied for a sign similar in size to the Pilot and McDonald's signs in Central Point. (Those signs are within city limits and not regulated by the county ordinance.) A shorter sign may be visible for the 100 cars that travel Highway 99 daily, but it wouldn't work for the 40,000 cars passing daily on I-5, the Bergquists argued. "All we've asked for is just what everybody else is allowed in Jackson County - the right to address the primary flow of traffic," said Ron Bergquist, who pays $16,000 annually in property taxes. The Bergquists filed the lawsuit in 1997 and hired the Medford attorney best known for free speech cases. He has 10 billboard cases pending in the courts, including one filed by Outdoor Media Dimensions, which owns the billboard on I-5 near Central Point that declares the pope to be the antichrist. "It would be folly for Jackson County Commissioners to try to write a new ordinance and restrict people's rights in the future," Herson said. "There's no great harm in letting people put up signs," said Herson, citing the example of the late Tig Dunham, a Talent resident who decorated his front lawn with signs, irritating local officials but entertaining Highway 99 travelers. "Every once in awhile you get a guy like Tig, but it didn't hurt anybody and nobody got killed over it. People can censor themselves. "They won't put up billboards on their front lawns. They want to keep their houses looking nice and keep property values up." Sign ordinances keep Southern Oregon from looking like Southern California, Jackson County's attorney said. "If we didn't have a sign ordinance," Bloom said, "(the Rogue Valley) might look like Los Angeles." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.