MAD Committee Puts its Touch on Welcome Sign Choice

There's a new design in play for Rancho Bernardo's welcome sign.

The Maintenance and Assessment District (MAD) Committee has tweaked a new submission, which it is expected to recommend for approval at this month's RB Community Council meeting.

The recommended design is founded in a community submission based on a contemporary design voted on last month. The changes:

• Tile roof all the way across the top, most likely modern red tiles instead of rounded ones.
• RB logo on both outside columns.
• Remove the wave design at the top of the middle portion.
• Change wording from "Rancho Bernardo Welcomes You" to "Welcome to Rancho Bernardo."
• Have the wording extend from the base up to the top to meet the tile.

The plan has been for both the Community Council and RB Planning Board to agree on a final design, though it's not clear how that process will play out. The Planning Board next meets May 19 to continue a vote on a different recommended design; the Community Council won't take up the sign issue until its May 26 meeting.

The move to pick a new design for the welcome sign has dragged on through multiple votes and controversies, leaving some people weary of it all and no longer concerned about the choice. The original sign was destroyed by a motorist in 2009. A volunteer group—the Refresh RB Committee—was formed by Councilman Carl DeMaio to streamline the decision process in mid-2010, taking over the process from the MAD Committee.

Since then, three different online surveys have been conducted. A fall survey showed people wanted a traditional choice; in a February vote between three designs, a traditional choice had the most votes, but Refresh RB considered the results inconclusive because the other two choices—contemporary designs—had more votes combined than the winner. The results of a runoff last month between the winning traditional sign and a new, contemporary option were thrown out by Refresh RB amid virtual ballot-box stuffing.

Refresh RB then created a new design which it recommended to the RB Planning Board. The board tabled the item at its April meeting after much discussion and is expected to finish the vote at this month's meeting. The RB Community Council did not take up the issue at its April meeting because it was waiting for one of its subcommittees—the MAD Committee that met Monday—to first make a recommendation. In addition to the Refresh RB design, MAD also considered several community submissions added in since the runoff.

The Planning Board has not yet considered the community submissions and it is not clear whether it will.

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