GENEVA – For years, when workers at Faith Lutheran Church had to change the sign’s message in winter, the letters would be frozen to the sign.

“You’d have to go up [a ladder] with a bucket of hot water –  in two feet of snow – and try to get them unstuck,” the Rev. Steve Okpisz said. “Water drips through [the sign we have], and that is what causes the letters to get stuck.”

On behalf of his church, at 1745 Kaneville Road, Okpisz filed a request to the city of Geneva for a text amendment to its sign ordinance to allow a light-emitting diode or LED sign for a nonresidential use by a religious institution or church in a residential zoning district.