After more than 17 revisions, four workshops and a cold winter night spent surveying the light-up signs around the Twin Villages, the Newcastle sign ordinance was finally accepted by voters.

During the Monday, June 16 town meeting in Newcastle, voters overwhelmingly went along with the new and revised sign ordinance, which had been rejected a year earlier, selectman and ordinance-crafter Ben Frey said.

The entire ordinance is available at the town office, and while it limits the size and scope of signs allowed in Newcastle, its main goal was to simply have all the information available in one place, Frey said.

“In our current land use ordinance, how signs can be used or placed is very disjointed,” he said. “Now, anyone who has a question can just go to (the new sign ordinance) and have everything they need spelled out for them right there.”

The land use ordinance and comprehensive plan would reemerge as a theme in the meeting: Voters approved all articles during the meeting, including $60,000 to begin the process of crafting a comprehensive plan and land use ordinance.

In 2006 the town attempted (with the help of several volunteers) to craft a comprehensive plan, only to have the state reject it. Despite repeated attempts at correcting the faults, the plan written by the volunteers was rejected. The money approved Monday will be used to hire a professional firm to begin the process, Frey said.

Resident Jenny Mayer said the cost is nothing when compared to the quagmire that is Newcastle's current rules.

“I spoke with a contractor who said he would never work in Newcastle again because there were so many hoops to jump through,” she said. “If the process is easier, then it's worth it. It's not money for nothing: it's an investment in Newcastle.”