有关教会标志变更的申请：给City of Casselberry的请求信
Dear Mr. Charles Senzee,Thank you for graciously giving me an opportunity to present our situation of our application for the facial change of our church sign on 2610 US Highway 17-92, Casselberry, FL 32707. My intention is to
help you to understand our case and hopefully you would graciously waive the requirement of the memorial sign change for our sign structure.
Last week, my congregation and I went through emotions from high expectation of receiving the approval of the sign change plan, to despair upon hearing the disapproval of our sign change plan, as we received
a call from our contracting sign maker, Mr. Alan Migliorato.
In my very limited knowledge of the code requirement for business signs on 17-92, newly made or changed signs must be a memorial type rather than a pole-sign, in order to make our city beautiful and to keep
Casselberry as an attractive neighborhood. However, there are several factors making us to think otherwise in our case: our existing sign was designed in the shape of a cross to express our Christian faith, our
change is really just a facial modification, which keeps the harmony with current chapel/annex building structure, and economically speaking we can simply not afford to turn it into memorial sign. Therefore,
I write to you to appeal you and your leadership to reconsider your decision on our original application of a sign change based on the reasons and circumstances I detail in following.
First, our existing sign was designed as whole in the shape of a cross to express our Christian faith (in addition to a cross on the top of the sign, the sign board serves as a cross piece). By transforming it into the memorial sign, we certainly will loss the part of our symbolism of Christianity in our sign. We sincerely ask you to respect our freedom of expression of faith.
Second, our sign change is really just a facial modification. We have not made any structural change, even to the plastic cover of the sign body. The solution given by our sign maker would be just to remove
the content of old one and paste a new sign on top of the existing material. I hope this may give you a reason in favor of keeping our current sign structure.
Third, our sign change keeps the harmony with current chapel/annex building structure. As we drive along 17-92 in the vicinity of our church, we sense that the current pole-sign matches well with our church
building. In fact, it is far better than some other existing signs and buildings from an aesthetic point of view. In addition, this chapel has been a historical and useful facility since it was built in1965.
Many people in this region, especially from Northland Church, have some significant connections with this chapel facility: many couples have been married there and their children have been baptized there, and some
even held funeral service there. There are many good memories linked to this beautiful facility, including the structure of the sign. The change of the sign structure would not help the preservation of these
connections in the community.
Fourth, economically speaking, we can simply not afford it. We are a very young church (7 years old) with small size of congregation (45 members), and most of our congregation are immigrants from China and Taiwan
who are graduate students and young professionals with young children. We can’t even afford to have a full time staff yet. My associate pastor Craig Daugherty and I are only paid for 10 hours and 20 hours per week,
respectively. Any changes from the current pole-sign to a memorial-sign would cost us at least an additional $3,000 to $5,000 which is simply beyond our financial capability. If our modification plan cannot
be carried out, we would have to remove old content of the sign, and leave a blank sign board in its place.
I hope that my highlights of our situation and reasons behind our need for a waiver would help you understand more about us and the facility we have maintained. Thank you so much for considering our case. We are
prayerfully waiting for your answer in favor of our request. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at 407.416.6572 or email me at biaochen_2000@yahoo.com.
Truly Yours,
Biao Chen, Ph.D.
Senior Pastor of Orlando Chinese Evangelical Christian Church