Kindered Spirits

An amazing thing happened last week. Sharon Cantrell and I actually agreed on something (actually, I think Sharon and I would agree a whole lot more if she didn't let her emotions toward Duda blatantly cloud her judgment.) The following comes from a knee slapping, good chuckle of an article that appeared this week in The Advertiser News regarding the proliferation of political signs in the city and the decision by city staff to disregard our sign ordinances.

A Sign of the Times
Campaign, real estate and business signs saturate Spring Hill
By Dan Copp, Staff Writer

Love them or hate them, the number of campaign signs for the upcoming Spring Hill election is growing almost as quickly as the city itself.

Campaign signage began sprouting along the Spring Hill's major thoroughfares more than 70 days before the ordinance allows.

Actually Dan, I posted pictures of the campaign signs on January 18th in the post "Tommy Duncan Introduction", a full 84 days before the election, and 54 days before the date that the ordinance allows (if you read '30 days prior to the election' literally).

However, Director of Codes and Zoning Ferrell White said the law was enacted years before the city enabled voters to cast early ballots.

"We've taken the stand that you can put campaign signs up 30 days before the early voting period, which was right about the time they started putting up these signs," White said.

Huh? Did he just say that the signs went up about the time of 30 days prior to early voting? Let's see...Early voting starts March 23rd, which means 30 days prior to early voting hasn't occured yet! In fact, it won't be here for another couple of weeks! Oh, but there's more...he continues:

"We've never really enforced that here in past years. I know there are two other local elections that we didn't enforce."

"We kind of just let it up to the candidates to decide when they wanted to put their signs up."

I'll ask the obvious question...Who gave Ferrell White the authority to determine which codes he chooses to enforce, and which ones he'll turn a blind eye to? According to Ferrell, he's decided to leave it up to the candidates to break the law as they see fit. Great idea!

The article gets even better:

Ward 3 alderman candidate Tommy Duncan was the first to break out the campaign signs more than 70 days before the city code allows.

"I have planned my campaign very well," Duncan said. "As a planner, I realize there are significant timelines that are critical to the success of my campaign. There are two dates that resonate louder than the others."

One such date is the voter registration deadline and the other is the early voting period, Duncan said.

Funny, I don't recall seeing anything on Mr. Duncan's sign that says either 'March 13th is the last day to register to vote' or 'Remember to go and early vote on March 23rd'. Also, had Mr. Duncan attended the Tim Holm 'meet and greet' on December 8th, he would have seen that Tim Holm has a leg up on the planning side of things. Tim Holm had all of his campaign signs THE FIRST WEEK OF DECEMBER!

The significance of those two dates pretty much nulls the 30-day ordinance," Duncan said.

Well, you can't blame Mr. Duncan for saying this. Afterall, it was Ferrell White who said that he was going to leave it up to the candidates to break the law or not. Mr. Duncan continues:

"Because this is the first time in Spring Hill's history that there is early voting for city elections, I realized the ordinance wasn't going to apply. So I met with the city and specifically asked them about this."

Better tell the 401 people who EARLY VOTED in the 2005 city elections that there votes didn't count, because apparently this year is the first time in Spring Hill's history that there is early voting!

Later in the article, Rick Graham sums it up best:

"It's an unfair advantage because the two guys I'm running against who have their signs out are getting name recognition and an early jump. So I had to make an ethical decision as to what's best for my campaign, although I might be losing votes. I think I made the right decision by waiting because I think it's ironic that you're running for office to enforce the bylaws, but you're not going to follow them before you're elected."

"It's just not good for Spring Hill to have 12 weeks of campaign signs littering the city," he said. "It's bad enough we do it for 30-40 days, but 12 weeks is just a little ridiculous."

AMEN!

Later in the article is where Sharon Cantrell and I are like two kindered spirits:

"I'm not going to violate city ordinance for my own benefit," Cantrell said. "I think the question here is why aren't they following the ordinance? This was an ordinance passed by the aldermen, and like other ordinances, it should be followed. Why are some ordinances being enforced and others not?"

Ooh, I just got a warm, fuzzy feeling...Shame it probably won't last that long. Later in the article:

Spring Hill ordinance allows businesses to display banners for 60 days out of the year. Business owners may purchase up to four banners per year to be displayed for two weeks at a time.

Like this?

The article finishes with:

That's a lot of information to absorb if you're in White's shoes.

"It's a lot to remember," White said, "but it takes a whole lot more to enforce it."

Actually Ferrell, enforcing the city code isn't really that difficult. It only gets difficult when you can't keep track of who and how you'll arbitrarily apply the code.