After more than 8 months of discussions, public meetings, detailed rewrites and tweaking, a proposed sign ordinance was voted on by the Warsaw Common Council Thursday night moving it effectively from proposed to finalized.

City planner Jeremy Skinner presented the ordinance on behalf of the Warsaw Plan Commission which has spent months refining the decree. “The gist was to make it simpler to the lay person,” said Skinner of the ordinance.

Skinner said the WPC members worked hard listening to the public and business owners trying to come up with an ordinance that provided “what the community wants to see as a whole” and added, “I think we accomplished that.”

He asked the council to take their time reading through each section and even suggested waiting until the next meeting to vote on it. Councilman Jeff Grose, who stressed his full support of the ordinance, suggested “out of respect” for all the months of hard work, that the council wait until the Oct. 15 meeting to take the final vote.

Councilman Mike Klondaris, who also sits on the WPC, added, “In the beginning we were misunderstood, but I think people now know we were trying to be more business friendly.” He also favored holding off on a final vote.

But Charlie Smith and Elaine Call were in favor of passing the sign ordinance right away. “Here’s what Jeremy has said,” offered Call, “that if you put something like this out there, if there’s a problem if will surface and be addressed. I’m all for passing it tonight.”

With that, a motion was made, seconded and the sign ordinance gained unanimous support.

The complete sign ordinance is available online.