Battle Ground council puts pause on reviving ‘Season’s Greetings’ sign

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A favorite item of some Battle Ground residents on Main Street likely won’t return this December as the city council delayed the purchase of a new “Season’s Greetings” sign.

The Battle Ground City Council’s discussion turned unseasonably festive during meetings in February. The city’s parks and community engagement advisory board has approved the designs for a replacement banner that will look fairly similar to the one that spanned Main Street years ago.

The city previously had a Season’s Greetings sign near the Main Street and state Route 503 intersection until the pole structure the old banner hung on failed in 2018.

At the council’s Feb. 21 meeting, the city’s Public Works Director Mark Herceg said the weight of the banners caused significant wear on the pole and its base. The project to improve the intersection of state Routes 502/503  also includes an additional turn lane that would have removed a pole.

At a Feb. 6 council meeting, Battle Ground Recreation and Facilities Manager Kim Cederholm presented two options for the banner from the city’s park board. One featured the same design as the original banner, while the other featured snowflake accents

“The actual ‘Season’s Greetings’ is the nostalgic (part),” Cedarholm said. “We’ve had it before, but then we added a little bit to it.”

The banner with the new accents is estimated to cost slightly more than $7,300, which includes shipping, or about $1,100 more than the one without the accents.

Cederholm initially told the council the order for the sign had to be placed by March 1 in order for it to be ready for December. At the Feb. 21 meeting, Herceg said Cederholm was able to get an extension for the sign at the quoted price until March 10.

Initially, the parks board agreed the banner should be placed in the same location it was previously, Herceg said. The main issue for getting the poles in place for the new banner is securing right of way, since the first location that was eyed for the banner location was under private ownership.

At the Feb. 6 meeting, councilor Shane Bowman suggested moving the banner setup further east. Herceg said it could solve the timing issue if the right of way was secured on the north side, but then noted the south side would become an issue.



During a meeting two weeks later, Herceg said moving the banner’s location to near Southwest Seventh Avenue could help some of the right of way issues since the property line is set back slightly from the side of the sidewalk.

“It appears that we can actually get the poles in the right of way without having to do any property negotiations,” Herceg said.

There is still a potential issue with guide wires which require some easements, he said. Herceg said he already spoke with one of the property owners, but has yet to hear back from the one to the south.

When negotiating the right of way with the property owners of the old location for the city’s state Route 502/503 improvement project, it took about eight months of back-and-forth, Herceg said. Other property owners involved with that project took less than half that time.

Bowman was more in favor of the project by Seventh Avenue as any rights of way acquisitions are likely to be done sooner.

“Banner signs are probably fairly close to the bottom of the list right after ‘shut out the lights as you leave the building tonight,’” Bowman said about getting the right of way at the original location.

Bowman, however, does not want the city to spend money on the holiday sign until all of the pieces to reinstall it are in place.

“I would rather us hold off on the acquisition of the sign until we have the acquisition of the property and we know that we’re going in that direction,” Bowman said.

The council agreed to hold off on any sign purchases for now. Herceg said the city is still in possession of the old sign, which could be placed temporarily if the new one isn’t ready in time.