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Editorial: Myths, Misinformation and Propaganda
December 16th, 2008

Editorial: Editorial: Will Park Closure Just Make Things Worse?
November 29th, 2008

Editorial: Editorial: October and November Surprises
October 30th, 2008

Editorial: Is the Sky Falling?
September 24th, 2008

Editorial: Editorial: Who Reads Cedar Key News?
September 19th, 2008

Editorial: The First Hurdle for Every Child
September 3rd, 2008

Editorial: A View of China from Cedar Key
August 18th, 2008

Editorial: Who Killed the Real Estate Market?
August 8th, 2008

Editorial: Editorial: It`s Clamerica!
July 1st, 2008

Editorial: Can the City Commission Limit Noise?
June 6th, 2008

Editorial: Unintended Results Rock the Boat
May 29th, 2008

Editorial: Creeping Gas Prices
May 13th, 2008

Editorial: Cedar Key Election Soon
April 30th, 2008

Editorial: Questions fo the Candidates
April 2nd, 2008

Editorial: Coming Elections: National County and City
March 19th, 2008

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Problem Ordinances

Problem Ordinances

Editorial

Over the past decade the number of Cedar Key ordinances has nearly doubled in number. They are approaching number five hundred. The ordinances can be categorized as either enforced, unenforced, haphazardly enforced, or unenforceable. Over the past three years the Commissioners and their successive City Attorneys have wrestled with a commercial sign ordinance that has not been enforced, and is therefore judged unenforceable. (Among the sign ordinance problems is a provision for fees required of sign owners, but unpaid. That has resulted in lost badly needed revenue for the City.) In recent years the number of signs, like the ordinances, have proliferated. Big signs, multiple small signs, even some trashy signs.


Ordinances enacted by our Commission include a tree ordinance, a seawall ordinance, a noise ordinance, an animal ordinance, a fence ordinance and the sign ordinance.

At the May 1 Commission meeting a proposed sign ordinance came up for a vote after much legal work. A motion in favor of the ordinance failed for lack of a second. A compromise motion then failed on a three to two vote. There May be a procedural possibility of a second "first reading" of the new ordinance at the next Commission meeting, at which time there will be one or possibly two new members in office, depending on the outcome of the election on May 8.


The new Commission will have the opportunity to make the sign ordinance, the tree ordinance, and all the others enforceable and enforced or take them off the books. It is up to the voters of Cedar Key to let the Commissioners know that they want clear enforceable ordinances put into effect in an even-handed way.

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