My Suburban Life

Looking Back at Downers Grove’s Biggest Stories in 2014

December 29, 2014

(My Suburban Life)—What happened: The village is enforcing a new sign ordinance after a nine-year grace period. The ordinance only allows business signs to face driveable right-of-ways, like roads, and not train tracks, like the Metra/BNSF line. The ordinance also doesn’t allow painted wall signs outside downtown. Robert Peterson’s Leibundguth Moving and Storage’s building is not located in the downtown business district and the back of his building faces the Metra tracks. He also has a sign advertising his business painted on the back of his building. After losing his final appeal with the village to keep his sign, Peterson filed a complaint against the village Dec. 8 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Peterson said the sign ordinance violates his First Amendment right to free speech.

Quote of note: “I am here again to try and survive. They have the power to do something and they won’t do anything.” Leibundguth Moving and Storage owner Robert Patterson.

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