At Monday night's meeting of the Jackson City Council, only less controversial than the Jackson Hills resolution question was certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report for the general plan land use element update.

Among one of the lengthier processes of government, preparation of the general plan update began in 1996 with a ruling by the Local Agency Formation Commission that the city of Jackson's sphere of influence would be only slightly expanded to include an area south and east of the existing city limits.

It took until 2004 for the city and its planning department to make their way to council approval of the land use element, based on a mitigated negative declaration California Environmental Quality Act document. The adequacy of the CEQA document was challenged in court, triggering a council decision to commission creation of an EIR.

The FEIR was released on Feb. 1 for public review, then discussed at a public hearing of the Jackson Planning Commission on Feb. 19. Following that hearing, the planning commission recommended to the city council that they certify the adequacy of the FEIR.

Public comment on Monday night was somewhat mixed, with the opposition's potency somewhat reduced by rescission of the Jackson Hills resolutions earlier in the meeting.

Councilman Wayne Garibaldi, who had been on the planning commission during much of the process, said, "I think the planning commission did a fine job on this."

City Planner Susan Peters spoke at length, admitting that, "Obviously, I'm an advocate for this. We have a lot of work to do on our housing element and economic element. We have to get our development code in place. We've already spent $200,000."

Ultimately, the city council voted to certify the FEIR.

With the June election approaching, concerns about political signage have begun to surface. When battles were waged during the 2006 campaign season, the city council decided to suspend existing ordinance provisions regarding political signs. That suspension is still in effect.

Announcement of the ongoing suspension brought District 1 supervisor candidate John Plasse to the podium, where he told the council that the city of Jackson Web site makes no mention of the suspension. Having accessed the ordinance online, Plasse had ordered his own campaign signs with conformance to the printed requirements in mind. In an exchange, city officials and Plasse agreed that online changes were in order.

City Attorney Andy Morris provided the council with insights into judicial attitudes about political sign ordinances.

"Sign ordinances are first amendment issues," he said, "and regulating the content of political signs is not allowed." If the city wants to have an enforceable ordinance, he added, it first has to expand its coverage to include all temporary signs.

Morris made it clear that every aspect of sign ordinance creation has been subjected to scrutiny. Of intended regulations regarding statutory limitations on display time, Morris told the council that "time limits on the front end have been struck down, while time limits on the back end have been upheld." This means that the city can demand removal of temporary signs after the event (or election), however, it cannot set a limit on how long before an event (or election) a sign may be displayed.

Faced with the complexity of the legal issues around political signage, the council made no move beyond agreement that the old sign ordinance political provisions are still suspended.

Jackson City swimming pool rates were raised, though revenues from pool operation will still fall short of operating expenses. Councilman Andy Rodriguez, while admitting that it will affect him personally, suggested that seniors 55 and older should be required to pay as much for pool admission as those 12 and under. All council members agreed and passed the resolution.

The final agenda item for the night was adoption of a format for city council meeting minutes. Following a brief discussion, the decision was made to adopt what is called the "action" format, provided that all audio tapes of meetings be kept "forever."