Most people call them electronic signs. Industry types say “on-premises dynamic digital signage.” City of Eureka staff prefers the term “electronic message centers,” or EMCs. Regardless of the terminology, the Eureka City Council tonight will reconsider the rules governing where they can go, how many there should be and, perhaps, whether they should be allowed at all.

According to a staff report, locals are divided on the issue. In recent months city staff has received two conflicting types of complaints about the signs, with some residents complaining they’re ugly and should be banned while business owners say the current regulations are too strict.

Those regulations, spelled out in municipal code section 155.162, provide very specific limits on the size and brightness of electronic signs, as well as the “dwell time,” meaning the frequency of the changing messages. For example — and we’re not making this up — an electronic sign displaying light colors in dark surroundings is limited to 20 foot-candles, the brightness level recommended by a group called the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. Dark colors in bright surroundings? Go nuts. You’ve got up to 100 foot-candles to play with.

Nine of these electronic signs have been approved in Eureka over the past 10 years, including the one pictured above plus prominent signs at Eureka Natural Foods, Carpet Depot on the south end of Broadway and (the first one approved in the city) Red Lion Hotel at the north end of town.

Eureka graphic designer Joel Mielke is among the critics of the light-up signs, which he called “charmless, glaring eyesores.” He plans to address the council tonight, expressing his disapproval. “As with noise,” Mielke said in an email to the Outpost, “this new, aggressive form of blight is impossible to ignore.” If these signs keep spreading, he warned, Eureka will soon resemble “the same anywhere-in-America, rent-to-own look as Bakersfield, San Bernardino and Fresno.”

A call to the manager of the George Peterson office pictured above was not immediately returned.

The city’s staff report makes the electric signage sound like the next logical step in sign evolution. “Bulb-lit theater marquees, neon signs and changeable reader boards with plastic letters and numbers were the precursors to EMCs,” the report reads. It also notes that about a quarter of U.S. states and 15 cities have banned these digital signs altogether.

Tonight’s meeting appears unlikely to generate anything concrete on the issue. Staff will propose establishing a stakeholder group, one of those dimly lit corners of governmental action, to review any changes to the city’s existing ordinance.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Eureka City Hall.