In Battlecreek Heights, a volunteer neighborhood project meant to replace a worn, vandalized entrance sign has ended with a new steel sign sitting beside a resident’s house — taken down after city staff told organizers the replacement exceeded what’s allowed in a residential zone and would require a zoning adjustment with a fee of $1,989 to keep it in place.
“It looked really cool,” said Shawn Cleave, a Battlecreek Heights resident who helped lead the project. “Even last month I had somebody email: ‘What happened to our beautiful sign?’”
Cleave said the neighborhood’s original sign had been deteriorating for years after students waiting nearby for South Salem High School pickups chipped and broke pieces off it. For a while, neighbors tried patchwork fixes, replacing letters as they disappeared. In an email to the city, homeowner Debbie Shields said letters were being stolen “on a pretty consistent basis,” and estimated the neighborhood had to replace letters at least six to eight times.
Eventually, Cleave said, residents decided they wanted something more permanent — and harder to vandalize. He said he put about $1,000 of his own money into the effort and neighbors raised additional funds while collecting feedback from residents and kids. The group chose a cut-out steel design made from weathering steel — often called Corten — which rusts into a patina and then stabilizes.
Cleave said the sign was fabricated locally by Metal Works N.W., which describes itself as a family-owned custom steel sign and fabrication shop in Salem. Residents then installed it themselves, anchoring it into the existing wall — “five, 10 minutes” of work, Cleave said — and added a solar-powered LED backlight so it would be visible at night.
What surprised them, Cleave said, was learning the city treated the replacement as something that required a permit — even though a sign had been there for years. “I didn’t even know that we had to go through a permitting process to replace a sign,” he said. “That’s bad on me for not being a little bit more proactive.”
Cleave said the city contact on the issue was Stephanie Myers, identified in a City of Salem permit-system document as a senior zoning inspector. In email threads forwarded to Salem Business Journal, Myers told the homeowners she could help them apply for a permanent sign permit and asked them to confirm the measurements, weight and cost.
Shields responded that the sign measured 80 inches wide by 40 inches tall and weighed about 107 pounds, and said the cost was just under $1,800. She noted the light had been disconnected, but described it as a small 12-volt lithium-ion battery charged by solar, staying on for about two hours after sunset.
Myers replied that the light “isn’t permitted to be attached,” but “may be on the ground and shine up on it.” The central issue, she wrote, was size. Myers told the homeowners the replacement “exceeds what’s allowed in that zone,” explaining that the old sign was listed as 11.5 square feet while the replacement would be 22 square feet. Myers pointed them to Salem Revised Code section 900.160, which she said allows a residential subdivision one freestanding sign at the main entrance, limited to a display surface not exceeding 12 square feet and a height not exceeding five feet.
Shields, in response, asked if they could simply pay the fee “without all the paperwork,” or whether they should “just take it down,” calling it “a very stressful process.”
When Shields later asked what it would cost to “keep the sign on the wall,” Myers replied that it would require a Class 2 zoning adjustment — “and the fee for that is $1989.00” — a step that requires planning review beyond a standard permit.
Battlecreek Heights’ concerns have now moved beyond one sign and into the broader debate about how Salem’s sign code is enforced. In a separate conversation with Cleave, City Councilor Deanna Gwyn — Ward 4’s representative — said she has heard other complaints about sign enforcement leading to additional compliance issues being flagged.
Cleave told Gwyn he had been hearing complaints that enforcement sometimes feels like “piling on,” where a city visit tied to signage can surface unrelated violations. Gwyn said she was not familiar with one fire-hydrant dispute Cleave brought up, but agreed the broader concern is worth understanding as part of the sign code conversation.
Gwyn also told Cleave that the code is hard for residents to navigate, and Cleave said that was exactly his experience: a replacement that felt straightforward to a neighborhood became complicated once it entered a permitting system geared toward contractors and technical classifications.
Cleave said he can understand why the city would want a permit on safety grounds, but not at the $1,989 fee the neighborhood was quoted. In his view, a replacement permit should function more like a recordkeeping step — an inspection, a note in the file, and a small fee — rather than something that costs more than the sign itself.
In the end, the neighborhood removed the sign. The metal cutouts and extra blanks Cleave hoped to install on the opposite side of the entrance are now stored at his home, he said. The removal turned the project into a recurring neighborhood question — especially after residents held an unveiling and kids helped spread the word through QR codes and fundraiser posts.
The Battlecreek Heights dispute is unfolding as business owners across Salem raise similar complaints about signage rules — not just what’s allowed, but how hard it can be to know where the line is.
Melissa Pollman, owner of Storage 4 Less at 1805 22nd St. SE, told Salem Business Journal her company has wrestled with sign enforcement for years because the facility sits back from the street with multiple driveways. Pollman said the problem isn’t just what’s allowed, but how hard it can be to know when a sign crosses the line.
Pollman said the business used small banner-style flags to help customers identify the entrance, but was told they could not be placed in the right-of-way — a boundary she said isn’t obvious on the ground.
Pollman said that after her employees mistakenly placed the banners in the right-of-way again, the city removed them without notifying the business. She said she learned what happened only after reviewing security camera footage that showed a city vehicle stopping to collect them.
Later, Pollman said, the business installed metal holders along the driveway to make placement consistent. That worked for several years, she said, until Myers told them the rules had changed and the banners would be treated as temporary signage — allowed for 60 days at a time, twice a year — with a permit required each time.
For now, Cleave said Battlecreek Heights won’t reinstall anything until there is certainty about requirements and costs. He said he doesn’t fault staff for enforcing the code as written — but he questions whether the outcome matches what residents and the city say they want: neighborhoods and businesses that take pride in appearance and can be easily found by the public.
“Another frustrating thing is you try to take pride in your neighborhood,” Cleave said. “Bureaucracy weighs you down.”
For Cleave and Pollman, the fight isn’t about wanting no rules — it’s about rules that feel predictable, affordable, and easy to follow.
