BETHEL —  Selectmen will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, June 4, in the Town Hall to approve the annual town meeting warrant.

Prior to approving it, the board may just delete or alter one article that asks, “Shall the town vote to repeal the Sign Ordinance, Chapter 136 of the town code?”

“It may be deleted altogether or it could go back to the amendments that were originally proposed,” Town Manager James Doar said on Friday afternoon in Bethel.

For anything more, there isn’t any time, because a public hearing would be required and the warrant must be posted no later than Monday night, he said.

“They have three options,” Doar said.

“They could just let it ride through town meeting vote to repeal, they could not ask any questions at all about the sign ordinance, or they could ask the town to accept the amendments that were proposed by the Ordinance Review Committee.”

But there couldn’t be any additional or new amendments to the sign ordinance.

If selectmen decide to change the sign ordinance repeal question to then put forward the Ordinance Review Committee’s amendments, town law requires a sheet showing the underline and/or strikethrough changes of existing ordinance to be provided to voters at town meeting, Doar said.

He disagreed with recent talk about town that the amendments are stricter than current town law.

“One change is, well right now any change of a sign needs to come before the Planning Board to decide,” Doar said.

“In looking at that, that doesn’t make any sense. If a new business moves into where a previous business existed, and they want to use the same sign on the same post, why not just have the (code enforcement officer) sign off on it?”

So the committee changed that to reflect that it doesn’t need to go to town planners, he said.

Another change involved use of flags, which Doar said he doesn’t think people understood.

Town ordinance currently allows for one “open” flag.

“And you can have an American flag, you can have a POW flag,” Doar said. “All of those are accepted. You’re allowed to have that. That doesn’t need any approval.

“You’re allowed to have one ‘open’ flag, and the Ordinance Review Committee said, ‘Who cares if it’s a ‘welcome’ flag or an ‘open’ flag? It doesn’t matter.’They struck the word ‘open,’ so now you’re only allowed to have one flag.

“So I think that’s less restrictive,” he said.

“But, to people’s credit, the sign ordinance is a pain….There is massive, widespread dissatisfaction with it.”

However, it’s not up to selectmen to make changes, but rather up to the business community, Doar said.

“They need to have some suggestions and come to the table about how to fix this,” he said.

“The selectmen, rightfully, are getting a little irritated about editorials saying they are ignoring this, when they don’t care what it looks like.”

Planning boards should have the say on sign ordinances, since they regulate signs, Doar said.

“But I’ve long said, the only way to enforce this is if everybody buys in, you know, the business people putting signs up and saying, ‘Gee, it’s important for the community that this look good,'” he said.

“We can’t be everywhere. We can’t see everything.”

Also up for discussion and possible action are formalities to authorize the fiscal year 2012 audit and countersigning the SAD 44 budget warrant, and a concealed weapons permit.

An executive session is scheduled toward the end of the meeting to discuss a personnel matter — the board’s annual performance review of the town manager. Doar has helmed Bethel for three years.

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