Marathon station wants electronic sign

The Marathon station on Highway 47 south of U.S. 14 has a request before the City Council for a new electronic, changeable-message sign.

The request has gone through the Project Review Commission. In response to a question about how often they would change the message, the station's representative answered that they might change messages mornings and early evenings. They were apprised of the City Code requirement that signs not be changed more than every four hours. They agreed, of course.

Now what difference does that really make? How did such a requirement ever make it into the City Code?

The Unified Development Code (UDO) requires that not more than 40% of the sign be a translucent message area. The sign applied for will have a 52.28% area, but the applicant explained that away as "This is only slightly above the 40% requirement."

They must have gone to a different math class than I did. It seems to me that 30.7% above the requirement is more than "slightly above." But, so what? It's a standard Marathon sign. The station is in a commercial area with no residential housing nearby.

The Council is bending so many other rules right now that they will quite likely let this pass, too. Codes are made to be broken, aren't they?