Some backlash over a newly installed electronic sign — the first permitted in Encinitas — is leading city officials to re-examine the city’s sign regulations.

Approved by the city’s Planning Commission in July and recently installed in front of the Saints Constantine and Helen Church along one of the city’s major roadways, the 5-foot-by-8-foot monument with an inset electronic display screen invites people to church programs and offers Bible verses in white letters on a sky blue background. Wednesday night’s message read, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The sign was having the opposite effect, however, on Encinitas resident Cindy Beck, who assisted with the city’s incorporation effort some three decades ago and has served on several city commissions.

“This sort of thing leads to urban decay,” she told the City Council on Wednesday, urging them to make sure no more digital monument signs are permitted in town.


Beck, who spoke during the time that the council sets aside at each meeting for items not on the agenda, said she was “incredulous” when she learned the church had a city permit for its new electronic sign on Manchester Avenue, directly across the street from San Elijo Lagoon.

Noting that there are “five other religious institutions, three schools, a tennis club and two retirement homes in this same area,” she said she feared that every one of them would soon try to install electronic signs with “garish, glowing advertisements, changing all day and night.”

“What a horror to think that this beautiful open space and dark sky part of Encinitas at the south entrance/exit to our city could become the electronically digitized monument center of coastal North County,” she said, later adding, “Is this the future face of our precious beach town? Please, no.”

Mayor Catherine Blakespear told her that it was the first time she’d heard about the sign and vowed to look into the issue. Councilman Tony Kranz said he agreed with Beck’s concerns about the possibility of more electronic signs proliferating in town and said he wanted modifications to the city’s sign ordinance to prevent that because “I’m certain the community doesn’t want electronic signs in abundance.”


Councilwoman Tasha Boerner Horvath, who served on the city’s Planning Commission when it approved the sign proposal last year, said commissioners put many conditions on their approval, including limiting how luminescent the sign could be and how often the message could change.

In a recording of that July 21st meeting, commissioners can be heard debating what standards to set for the sign just before they unanimously approve the proposal. They decided to allow the message to change no more than once an hour.

They also directed city planning department employees to start revising the city’s sign ordinance, so they can include standards for digital signs, and they decided that any other digital sign proposals will be handled on a case-by-case basis by the commission until that revision process is complete.

That revision hasn’t yet occurred, city employees said Wednesday night.


In a telephone interview Thursday morning, Father Michael Sitaras of Sts. Constantine and Helen Church told a reporter that most of the comments he’s heard about the sign in the weeks since it went up have been positive. An employee at MiraCosta College next door to the Greek Orthodox church even sent him a thank you note for the “encouraging” messages on the sign.

They change the messages a few times a day, he said. During the morning and evening commuter period, they post information about the church’s on-site preschool program, while at other times there are Bible passages or listings for church services. In late summer, they plan to advertise the church’s huge annual Greek festival.

The electronic sign colors are very subdued, and they match the colors of the church, he stressed, saying that the monument is front of their church and how it looks is extremely import to them.

“We want be good neighbors and we want to be sensitive to the people that pass by, but we do want to tell people about our events,” he added.


Henry is a freelance writer in Encinitas