March, 30 2014

Held at The Architect Bar and Social House in downtown Raleigh last Thursday, The Publicus Community hosted a Town Hall meeting in response to proposed changes regarding sign ordinances in the city–changes that could potentially harm small businesses.

“I am a small business owner in Raleigh, and the proposed sign ordinance will be detrimental to my business and my business neighbors,” says one local shop owner on the matter, Douglas Diesing; and another, Nancy Campbell, adds that “it stifles the creative message businesses want to communicate and what the public wants to see.”

The concerns raised were over whether or not the ordinances are in need of changing, and should they be more or less restrictive. With the inclusion of city council members John Odom and Bonner Gaylord, there were well over a hundred individuals who came out to support and listen in on the discussion, all very passionate about the topic at hand.

Many local news media outlets showed up to cover the event as well, including WRAL, NBC 17, and ABC 11 (full list list/links of coverage here)–and The Publicus Community is very pleased to see that this Grassroots campaign is garnering the necessary attention in order to make an impact on the ordinance decision.

So far the petition to create a Stakeholders Group for Raleigh Sign Ordinance that was implemented by The Publicus Community has exceeded its original goal of 100 signatures by reaching nearly 350, and on Tuesday, about 100 individuals showed up at the City Council meeting to lobby in support of the vote.

The Publicus Community and Shop Local Raleigh are happy to announce that the issue now resides in the hands of a Stakeholder’s Group, and would like to thank all those who so passionately came out to participate in the Town Hall conversation.