Next time you reach the triangle where A Street Northwest and Auburn Way branch off, consider the humble sign that looks down on the spot.

Because when the day comes that nearby Little Caesars gets to advertise its pizzas up there, with a topping of “Welcome to Downtown Auburn,” you’ll be looking at a bit of history — the last act of the 2010-2011 Auburn City Council.

It happened Monday evening when the City settled a two-year-old lawsuit with the owners of nearby Little Caesars, lighting the way to a decent, respectable, City-business cohabitation of the same sign space.

“This allows us to settle a small piece of property with a commercial enterprise, and we will share the signage on this piece of property,” said outgoing Councilwoman Lynn Norman. “It will provide kind of a win-win situation for both entities.”

The vote was unanimous.

Here’s how the history unfolded.

In 1993, the City of Auburn bought the 273-square-foot, triangular piece of land with the sign already there — it had once advertised a gas station, but had never actually received a permit — and spruced it up with landscaping. In 1999 the owners of nearby Little Caesars, Yeriel, LLC, sent some employees to rip out the City’s landscaping at the base of the sign.

When Yeriel did that, it created several problems for itself, among them bringing to light a forgotten fact — that the sign was illegal.

City attorneys said “cease and desist, you’ve got a private, unpermitted sign on public property, you can’t have that, and pay us for the damage you did to our vegetation.”

To settle the suit, Yeriel offered to reimburse the City for the cost of re-landscaping and to allow the City to use the upper half of the business sign if it, Yeriel, could keep it. It also offered to buy the underlying property and to paint and maintain the sign. The offer was $800 for the land and $2,200 in damages.

To complete the settlement and for both parties to have use of the sign, a property transfer was necessary, because the land also is in the public right of way, and Auburn City Codes do not permit signs within the right of way.

“This is the settlement that they came up with,” said Mayor Pete Lewis. “They get to keep the sign, they have to maintain the area, and we get our logo above with a ‘Welcome to Auburn’ type sign.”