Phil Buchanan  said, "in the past few days met several times with a Dollar General representative to try to resolve the controversy over the big and ugly signage on their new building.  Progress has been limited".

Thus far they have proposed to change out the huge neon 112 sq ft sign on the  front of the building for a flat logo face 50 sq ft sign with overhead dark sky lighting. I think that would be a great improvement.They however flatly refuse the replace the monster shocking yellow box sign out by the road. They have instead proposed to build a roofed structure around it to soften its appearance.  Even these changes they say would not take place until at least weeks after their planned opening this Monday or Tuesday.See the attached drawing for details of each of these proposals.

Earlier today I was again advised by Dollar General management that they would not honor the promises made by their developer last May as to signage, nor would they honor the promise by their developer on 1 March 2011 to reduce the size of both the front wall and road signs. They said the developers did not have authority to make those promises. They did offer to try next week to find a way to further alter the roofed structure to make the sign appear smaller.

I asked that the road sign be turned off until the controversy could be resolved. They said they would ask their electrician if that is possible (of course it's possible). Several Pine Islanders have advised me that it was lite last night and was blinding.

I advised Dollar General management that numerous Pine Islanders were threatening to boycott the store if it opened with that same signage. They said they were definitely going to open next week with the signs unchanged.

I've probably done about as much as I can do to persuade Dollar General to reduce the signage. The attached drawing is apparently as far as they are willing to go, but even that has not actually been submitted to Lee County for approval or agreed to in writing.

Phil Buchanan