EV High Sign No Longer An Oversize Problem Reader Board Is Just Small Enough After Size Was Recalculated Separately From Its Support

East Valley High School’s controversial reader board isn’t too big after all.

The Spokane County Board of Adjustment on Wednesday overturned a planning department ruling that said the sign violated a 32-square-foot restriction and therefore could not be erected at the school.

The board’s action clears the way for the reader board to go up, probably this spring.

The electronic sign, which was purchased with money raised by students, has been sitting in a warehouse since last summer while school officials figured out what to do.

The sign, which is meant to replace a dilapidated reader board now at the school, will display school news and advertise upcoming events.

Planner Tom Mosher, who in November denied the district’s request to erect the sign, told the board during a three-hour public hearing Wednesday that he had worked on the problem for some time but couldn’t find a solution.

No matter how he measured it, the sign was just too big, he said.

“I couldn’t get from Point A to Point B because there wasn’t any supporting data,” Mosher said. “If you can find a way through this, more power to you.”

Board members did.

They accepted the school district’s argument that Mosher miscalculated the size of the sign.

East Valley Superintendent Chuck Stocker argued at the hearing that a support structure that holds up the reader board shouldn’t have been measured as part of the sign.

Without the support structure, the sign measures 31.8 square feet, Stocker said, just under the county’s 32-square-foot maximum.

With the structure, the reader board measures more than 36 square feet.

Bob Moore, sales manager for American Electronic Sign, supported Stocker’s testimony. Moore said the outside structure was not part of the sign itself and shouldn’t be calculated when measuring the size.

“I am comfortable with this definition,” board member Martin Hibbs said.

Board member Frank Hawley agreed.

“I think there is some room for interpretation here,” he said.

Board chairman Wayne Powell was concerned that approving East Valley’s reader board would set a bad precedent.

“The danger that I see is that people can come along in the future and make (these support structures) bigger and bigger and bigger,” Powell said.

But the chairman changed his mind after board members agreed to require any future sign supports to be the minimum size necessary to support the sign.

American Electronic has a contract to sell the used reader board to the district at a discount price, something company president Nathan Batson said he decided to do as a community service.

Senior Heather Sylvester told the board that students had worked for three years to raise money for the sign, which costs more than $10,000.

“We have a beautiful school. We’d like to enhance it with a beautiful sign,” Sylvester said.

The unanimous vote by the board will make that possible.