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OBSERVATIONS
October 31, 2019 |
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Campaign signs
greet North Third Street motorists as they
approach Talton Park.
 Wingate Lassiter |
Political campaign signs are useful
--- even if they're placed illegally
Those colorful placards promoting candidates for the Smithfield Town Council are an effective means of advertising in this day and age of limited media outlets that are local and affordable.
They're especially effective when they're placed in front of residences and businesses of folks we know and whose judgment we respect. Such endorsements get my attention.
And, I must admit, the placards are effective reminders of who's running for office as we drive about town. After all, name recognition is crucial in politics.
Yet, many of those signs are illegally erected on public rights-of-way and town-owned properties like parks and cemeteries. And it's likely some of those signs are stuck in the ground beside privately-owned properties whose owners haven't given permission. (Those signs near the Board of Elections office are permissible since that's a polling place for early voting for all of Johnston's municipal elections.)
A Town of Smithfield ordinance declares: "It shall be unlawful for any person to post, display or have posted or displayed any sign or any advertisement of a political nature on any property owned by the town including buildings, vacant lots, rights-of-way, and utility poles except on election day when such signs or advertisements may be posted on property owned by the town, except utility poles, during the hours of 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m."
Enforcement? Obviously there is none. And that's easy to understand: Why would an employee of the Town of Smithfield risk the wrath of a candidate for the Town Council --- one of his potential bosses --- by removing those signs?
So here's a request to the candidates and their supporters:
Please collect your signs, especially the illegal ones, as soon as you can after next Tuesday's votes are counted.
Campaign signs
at Riverside Cemetery: Is that disrespectful?
A LITTLE BIT OF FALL COLOR
We're not fully there yet, but Smithfield's trees are beginning to show their stuff, like these young beauties beside Hood Street on Tuesday of this week.
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