A plan to loosen aldermanic control over outside store signs—a power that some aldermen have found to be a ready means to raise campaign cash—has hit a speed bump in the City Council.

Under the original version of the proposal, each outside sign no longer would have required a separate ordinance, or law, to be enacted, as it the case now.

Instead, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection would have been empowered to issue a permit administratively, though the local alderman would be notified and have a chance to object if he or she chose.

The plan would have covered all signs that project 12 inches or less into the public way, and had the backing of dozens of local chambers of commerce and similar groups, headed by the Small Business Advocacy Council.

"Passing this ordinance would significantly reduce the time it takes to display a sign and benefit small businesses across the city," council co-CEO Elliot Richardson told me. He says the current process can be so slow that he knows of businesses "that have opened and closed before the City Council acts."

Related: Chicago sign laws need to change, small business says

But even though 39 of the council's 50 members signed on as co-sponsors when the proposal was submitted in November, the proposal has never come up for a vote in the Committee on Transportation and Public Way, where it was sent. And now committee Chairman Anthony Beale, 9th, is floating what he says is a "compromise" that will speed things along, but still allow aldermen to block disruptive signs.