Gilbert Beat

The Gilbert Town Council decided at Tuesday’s meeting to put off a vote on the proposed “sign walker” ordinance, required by state law by Dec. 31 to regulate businesses who pay people to stand on the side of the road, holding signs to advertise their business. This practice is currently banned in Gilbert. The council is asking for clarification in the language of the new ordinance that town attorney Susan Goodwin said she could have ready by the next council meeting.

Just after that decision, Mayor Steve Berman and Councilman Don Skousen both said they favored compiling the number of calls for service generated for the town’s fire department by the Gilbert County Island Fire District. The district was formed under a new state law after a protracted battle between county residents seeking protection after Rural/Metro halted service to the area and town officials who raised cost and safety concerns.

Skousen asked if fire district residents, some of whom said they didn’t expect more than one or two calls a month to come in from their areas, were being notified of how many calls were actually coming in.” The number of times is much more than they thought it was going to be when they were negotiating this,” Skousen said.

Berman, who will face Skousen in this spring’s upcoming mayoral election, agreed with him. “I think we owe it to our citizens to let them know the amount of services people really are requiring, to show them we really weren’t trying to be unreasonable,” he said.

Town Councilman Les Presmyk said he didn’t think publicizing the numbers would help anybody without providing additional context on the issue. The issue of whether to compile and publicize these figures could come up at a future meeting.