Electronic Message Board Request Form

Village of Arlington Heights Electronic Message Board Administrative Policy

Purpose
This administrative policy is intended to establish procedures and guidelines governing the use of the Village's electronic message signage at Northwest Highway and Arlington Heights Road, and potential future signage. The primary function of the signage is to disseminate village news. A secondary function is to share community event information from community partners, based on guidelines outlined below.

Responsibility
The Village Manager’s Office will act as the administrator for the electronic sign and will schedule, monitor, and control non-emergency and emergency messages.

Nature of Messaging
The sign will not be used to display any of the following messages:

• Preference for a political candidate, party or position whether local, regional or national; or
• Messages that are politically charged, discriminatory, offensive, or religious in nature; or
• Advertisement or benefit private business, commercial goods or services; or
• Events or meetings restricted by purpose or membership to a limited segment of the community.

Procedures
The Village of Arlington Heights owns and operates the electronic sign located at the northwest corner of Northwest Highway and Arlington Heights Rd. The Village utilizes the sign to provide news, announcements, and information to the public. The sign is also used to share information about community events hosted by community-based organizations as outlined below.

Eligibility
The following entities are eligible to submit requests for electronic sign messages. Priority for messaging is in the following order:

1.  Village of Arlington Heights messaging including emergency messages. Per the direction of the Village Manager’s Office, emergency or public safety messages will override all other messaging. Village of Arlington Heights messaging of any type will always maintain top priority with use of the sign. In an emergency situation that warrants mass communication, all non-village related messages will be suspended at the preference of the Village.
2. Other units of local government including the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, the Arlington Heights Park District, school districts with jurisdictional boundaries which overlap the corporate limits of the Village, in whole, or in part.
3. Arlington Heights not-for-profit organizations (defined as an Illinois and IRS/Internal Revenue Service registered not-for-profit organization, with a tax exemption number, either based in the Village of Arlington Heights or whose service area consists principally in the Village of Arlington Heights), that are sponsoring an event within the Village which is open to the community, whose primary purpose is not-for-profit and not for commercial gain. No private business messages can be displayed on the electronic sign and no outside advertising will be permitted.
4. Private organizations may request their event information to be shared on the message board as long as it is non-political, non-religious subject material, and is a free/non-ticketed event that is open to the general public of all ages.
5. Elected Officials Holding Office can request the display of messages under the following conditions:
   1. The message is non-political in nature; or
   2. The message is not within six months of an election; or
   3. The requested message promotes a meeting or event that is open to the general public and no promotion of a campaign or political party will take place at the event; or
   4. The message does not include general Public Service Announcements or general messaging; or
6. Messages do not include advertisements for programs hosted by outside organizations or agencies; or
7. Messages seeking solicitation for collection (example: pop-top collection) will not be approved.

Request Process
The number of community messages displayed during quarterly time periods will be limited. There will be no more than 10 non-Village messages in the queue at any given time.

Message board requests from not-for-profits are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the eligibility and priority standards set forth above in this policy. The Village reserves the right to display or deny messages.

Requests must be received no earlier than 8 weeks and no later than 2 weeks before the event date. Requests must be received through the online form at www.vah.com/messageboard. 

Content for Event Messages
The Village will design and create messages using the text provided by the requester. External content will be limited to:

• Group/Event Name
• Time & Place
• Website or Phone

Frequency
Each entity or organization may request one message to be displayed per quarter year. (Jan 1 – March 31, April 1 – June 30, July 1 – Sept. 30, Oct. 1 – Dec. 31.)

Each message will be displayed for a maximum of 2 weeks.

Units of Local Government or School Districts may exceed the above limitations.

Editorial: The Village maintains the authority to create and edit all messages. No message will be displayed that includes comments that may be deemed inappropriate. The Village will contact the message requester to notify them of their message request status.

Text to be Displayed

Three lines of text can be displayed, with 18 characters (including spaces) permitted per line. Please enter the text you would like displayed on each line below. Your submission will be limited to 18 characters per line. It is up to you how many lines of text you have displayed.