Many very successful communities around the country and closer to home (including Farragut and Maryville) have enacted signage controls, especially for digital signs, which are very intrusive.

Maryville has allowed digital signage. Commercial Farragut for the most part is Kingston Pike. Wait till it’s not.

Nothing in these ordinances prohibits lighted signage. Knoxville's sign ordinances for the most part are much more liberal than these communities mentioned above.

Now they aren’t. As explained, if dimmed properly (which could be done via codes) the LED signs put out less ambient light than a traditional flood lighting.

Planning experts agree that aesthetics is an important component of a successful community that is good for business, good for residents and good for tourism.

Besides the mountains, what tourism are you talking about? The mountains are protected. The “litter on a stick” just advertises the “litter” that surrounds them - and brings the money in to help pay to preserve them.

So it's a little disingenuous to assert that this hurts businesses.

Yeah, what do those multi-million dollar marketing departments of Walgreen’s, McDonalds, Sonic, CVS, etc. know? Obviously the only reason they do it is to waste money. You should extend these tax generators your insight.

If two competing businesses are side by side and one puts in a big flashy sign, what does the other one do? They put in a larger, flashier sign, if they can afford it.

Yes and maybe when Dominos gets their butts kicked in an economic downturn, they will have to reduce prices to $5 to match Little Caesars prices. Wait, they’ve done that.

Businesses compete, sometimes even in advertising and promotion (which includes signage), doesn’t mean they get to ignore the existing codes – which apparently you are doing in making your argument.

The only way to level the playing field and avoid a signage "arms race" is to prohibit the signs to begin with.

The only way?

Which is what City Council did last night, based on the overwhelming public input asking them to take control of this issue and ban them.

By overwhelming you mean the 20 members of the Quixote group that showed up to meetings? Why did you not fight to have this put on a referendum? Let folks know what kind of money advertising brings in and would be lost vs. how you think things should “look”.

Billboards, billboards, billboards. Let me tell you what you’ve really done. By getting your fearless Quixote leaders to lump on premise signage in with billboards, you have forced the “little guy” to have to use Lamar or the other companies. No longer will the individual business owner get to determine his or her own message at their own location.

To reiterate, you just propped up Goliath while lopping David off at the knees. Well done.

BTW – What do you do Ms. Starbuck? I’m looking for job security and it’s obvious I need to stay on the same side as you and the rest of the windmill fighters.

New ordinances don't help if there's no enforcement. Typically, a city council gets all up in arms about things like led signs...but they fail to realize that most of the existing signs they are upset about aren't even approved signs.

I once went to a council meeting (different city) where a local sign company came in and showed 2 pictures of an area the council was using to demonstrate the "evils" of signage.

The first picture was an actual picture of the area, and indeed, it was overloaded with signage. For the second picture, they used photoshop to mask out any signs that didn't have permits. Everyone agreed that the area looked fine after that.

You could probably do well selling adult diapers to people like you. Can I interest you in a little talcum powder?

I too, am sad about the decline of U.S. manufacturing. However, the decline has to do with competitiveness. Nobody is willing to pay more for products that require highly paid, unionized workers with lucrative health care and pensions. Like it or not, consumers vote with their wallets.