Candidates get mixed signals on campaign signs

Dan Kulin

Monday, Feb. 17, 2003 | 10:38 a.m.

North Las Vegas City Council candidate Bill Dolan was shocked when he heard the order from city code enforcement officers: Remove your campaign signs from public property.

The directive came a few days after Dolan and his campaign workers put his signs around the city. In past years Dolan had seen others' campaign signs on public property at intersections and on the fences lining the washes in the city.

But he was told city laws prohibited campaign signs on public property, so he removed them.

Three or four weeks later, he saw re-election signs for the council members popping up in the same places he was told his couldn't be.

He suspected the incumbents were being given an unfair advantage, and his campaign volunteers complained. But city officials said they weren't playing favorites and ordered council members William Robinson and Shari Buck to remove their signs from public property, too.

Filing for the spring municipal elections closed just two weeks ago. The elections are still months away. But despite North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Boulder City's prohibitions of campaign signs on public property, the signs already seem to be everywhere.

Henderson is the only city in the area that allows candidates to put their campaign signs on public property, as long as they don't obstruct drivers' views of oncoming traffic.

For Henderson resident Gayle Morris, however, any view of campaign signs is a bad one, obstructive or not.

"I think (the campaign signs) are kind of unsightly," Morris, 60, said. "They kind of look tacky. It looks like a field of growing signs in some places."

Robinson, who is seeking a sixth term in office, said campaign signs on public property are a problem in every election.

"It's just a crazy season," Robinson said. "I've got somebody putting them up for me and I'm not sure where they're putting them. But I want to make sure they're not putting them up in the wrong places so I have had to take some down."

A longtime area political consultant said that only Boulder City strictly enforces campaign sign restrictions. After all, the signs play a role in the democratic process and they are a form of free speech.

For those reasons reason, residents should expect the proliferation of signs on public property in the coming city elections, just as has happened in past elections, said Steve Wark, a former head of the state and Clark County Republican Party. Wark has run campaigns in the North Las Vegas in the past and is working on Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald's re-election campaign.

"It's always been loosely enforced," Wark said. "Most cities just don't have the manpower or the civic will to enforce some of their codes."

"Ignorance caused by a lack of enforcement" is to blame for the now common practice of putting signs on public property, Wark said.

Political consultant Jim Ferrence, senior vice president of Paladin Advertising, agreed the enforcement is "kind of arbitrary."

But Ferrence said that while many signs may appear to be on public property, most are not. Instead many signs end up on vacant property owned by large corporations or out-of-town land owners who don't complain when political signs pop up on their property.

"You find vacant land and put a sign up," he said.

Ferrence is working on the campaigns of Robinson in North Las Vegas, Boulder City Mayor Bob Ferraro, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald. He said in every campaign some signs are placed on public property.

"It's impossible to always know exactly what is public land and what's being enforced and what's not being enforced," Ferrence said. Also adding to the problem is the fact that volunteers or low-paid workers are the ones putting up many of the signs.

"We don't get it right every time," he said.

Las Vegas and North Las Vegas officials say they will never be able to catch all of the sign scofflaws. But they said the laws prohibiting campaign signs from public property have been enforced in past elections and will be now. Generally, however, code enforcement officers only take action when they receive a complaint about a sign.

North Las Vegas Code Enforcement Manager Sheldon Klain said his office typically receives about 10 sign complaints each campaign season.

"It's common in every campaign," he said. "And we're not doing anything different than before."

Las Vegas Neighborhood Response Manager Dave Semenza, who oversees the city's code enforcement officers, said his office probably orders the removal of a "couple dozen" signs during each election cycle.

"It does happen and when we're notified, we notify the candidate and give them 48 hours" to remove the signs, Semenza said.

Las Vegas code enforcement officers also pay special attention to traditional problem areas, such as the east corner of Rampart Boulevard and Summerlin Parkway, which is owned by the city and often attracts large number of campaign signs, he said.

And while Henderson's more lenient rules legalize what Wark and some others say happens throughout the valley, that doesn't mean that the signs are welcomed by everyone in Henderson.

Within sight of signs touting rival Henderson City Council candidates Rocco Tucker and incumbent Andy Hafen at the intersection of Lake Mead Parkway and Boulder Highway, Morris said Boulder City's no-tolerance policy is probably the better way to go.

But Morris said even if Henderson adopted regulations similar to its neighbors, she's not sure it would change the landscape.

"I understand. It's something they need to do."