Sign shenanigans?

By Mike Fox
Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2008

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Pittsboro, NC - Every election cycle some overzealous supporters of all candidates steal or vandalize signs. It is unfortunate but it happens to everyone, from supporters of everyone.

For example, Cross and Barnes have not only had signs taken down and thrown into the woods, but in some areas where the soil is rocky and it's hard to push in the metal frames, supporters of Kost and Starkweather have actually removed our signs from our frames and replaced them with their own signs, on our frames! We know this because we were suspicious it was happening so we started putting subtle but distinctive markings on our frames and then checking when one of our signs has been "replaced" by one of theirs.

However we did not make an issue of it or call the sheriff or anything silly like that, because that's what happens in campaigns and raising a fuss over it is a waste of time because some things will never change. So when we find it we shrug our shoulders, fix it and keep on rolling. I'm only mentioning it now because the topic has come up.

There's something else going on though, which is that this time around the county zoning staff are being more vigilant about removing errant signs than they have been in the past. It's ironic that the coalition is complaining about this now because they are the cause of it. Early in the campaign, when we had our signs out and they didn't yet, certain leaders of the coalition lodged a bunch of complaints to the county zoning office about the placement of our signs. We were notified of the violations and fixed them.

In the course of doing this we learned in very close detail what is and isn't allowed by the county zoning office and we have worked hard to stay within that. Remember also that before he became a commissioner Mike Cross had a sign painting business, so he knows a little something about what's allowed and what isn't. Despite our best efforts, sometimes we have an overzealous supporter put signs where they shouldn't be and they get picked up, but we don't blame our opponents when that happens.

Anyway when the coalition candidates got their sign orders in they started putting them out, in many cases violating the very rules that they had used to complain about our signs. And predictably, a lot of their signs were picked up by county zoning staff, and they blamed us, sometimes indignantly contacting us to demand that we stop this supposed vandalism. When that happened we simply suggested they study the rules more closely.

There are now several places where we have a carefully placed sign that we know is allowed, and then our opponents put their own signs not so carefully near them, but not in a permitted fashion. When that happens their signs sometimes get picked up and ours don't. One shouldn't always assume vandalism!

Finally, our opponents can rest assured that we are not interested in removing their signs which they put near ours, except of course when they on the property of one of our supporters. Their signs are, in our opinion, so poorly designed that when they are close to ours, all they really accomplish is drawing people's eyes to our signs, which we think is a good thing :)