If you need a new business sign in Natchez, good luck figuring out the process for approval. In a poorly planned move &045;&045; if it was planned at all &045;&045; Natchez aldermen on Tuesday voted to place a moratorium on the city’s decade-old sign ordinance.

In the early 1990s, city leaders spent months working on a new sign ordinance for Natchez &045;&045; work that included extensive research on other communities’ regulations and public hearings to gauge residents’ and business owners’ opinions.

In the years since, the sign ordinance has worked well. It places general restrictions on signage &045;&045; including size and type &045;&045; that are not uncommon among other communities, along with other regulations for signs in the historic district.

Now the city board has called for a moratorium on the sign ordinance, leaving all of us with a lot of questions.

How long will the moratorium last? Aldermen, who blindsided their own city planning department with the move, put no limits on their suspension of the regulations.

What kind of changes do aldermen want to make?

They say they want the ordinance to be &uot;business-friendly,&uot; meaning, as David Massey said, not &uot;making sure (a business owner’s) sign isn’t a foot larger than it’s supposed to be.&uot;

Just how do you get a sign in the City of Natchez now? Rather than leave in place the ordinance until they can study it, aldermen simply called for a suspension, meaning anyone who wants a new sign will have to apply directly to the board of aldermen, according to Massey.

This rash move in an election year &045;&045; after a decade of alleged complaints during which time aldermen have done little to change the ordinance &045;&045; throws the process of how to apply for a new sign into confusion.

At the very least, aldermen immediately need to make clear what the process for applying for a sign is until they work out the changes they want to make.

And as for changes, if they want them, aldermen should invest the same amount of time that went into writing the ordinance in the first place.

We suspect their findings will be the same this time around.

Other communities &045;&045; Mississippi’s own Madison and Oxford, Germantown, Tenn., Fairhope, Ala., to name a few &045;&045; have much stricter ordinances regarding signage that does Natchez. Those communities are also prosperous; they don’t seem to have a problem attracting and keeping businesses large and small.

Moreover, Natchez as a tourist destination needs a strong sign ordinance to keep its historic districts and other areas of the community attractive to visitors.

A moratorium on the ordinance not only muddles the process for getting a sign, it is a huge step backwards for a city that must remain an attractive destination for visitors and businesses alike.