Pattye Benson

Community Matters

Quick Response from Township Manager & Public Works . . . Political Campaign Signs Removed from Township Park

I received a response from township manager, Mimi Gleason thanking me for me email and explaining that the township would take care of the removal of the political campaign signs from Swedesford Road Open Space Park. Within minutes of receiving the email, a public works truck and two township workers arrived at the park. A township worker stood on the top of a tall ladder and a garden rake and his long reach were required to remove the signs. Good news . . . quick response from the township and the political campaign signs are down . . . bad news is that is that it required township time and money for the removal.

I’m sure that township residents don’t want their taxpayer dollars spent this way; I ask that political candidates instruct their campaign volunteers not to use our township parks for political signage. Thank you Mimi and Steve Norcini for your quick response!

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  1. Pattye —

    Good job. I think that the photos you showed in the earlier post show this isn’t one campaign doing this, but more of a state or national GOP effort (I think they are called “Victory” programs.) I only say this because of the posting of all three signs.

    Either way, good catch, it shouldn’t be done.

    1. Are you suggesting that no Democratic signs are improperly placed? Can we move on to a more important discussion? I wish no one would use signs — the abundance of which is further evidence that voters aren’t given much credit — 100 signs with the same names down at the Gateway/202 intersection is an annual event — and I sometimes specifically won’t vote for someone who is so disrespectful to think that quantiy will ever equate to quality.

      From the height of these signs, aren’t we assuming someone had some serious equipment to do it (like a bucket truck?) I hope you are not challenging people to find signs now….I wish we could protect telephone polls too.

  2. I agree – everyone should play by the rules and in this case someone was a bit overzealous. We have a similar situation here in Schuylkill Township (John I am allowed to comment about Schuylkill right?) where there were 10-12 Drucker signs… again, some over zealous supporters and the township has to take time and resources to make the campaigns play by the rules…. Just as an aside, and I would be interested to know if Paul did the same – Warren said specifically to his campaign team that he did not want any signs up until the rules allowed UNLESS it was on private property… So whoever did this, they jumped the gun but it was not directed from a campaign that I am aware of. Hey Hockeypuck, the rules vary from municiaplity to municiaplity but generally nailing any placard to a tree is verboten.

    1. “The act of nailing the signs to a tree”…

      Clearly, if you look at the picture close, you can see that the signs were not ‘nailed’ to the tree as everyone is claiming. They were stapled.

  3. John —

    Do you KNOW this is TTRC or is this another one of your assumptions stated as fact? If you KNOW, please provide proof…and proof is not the lawyerly, “they didn’t deny so it must be them.’

    Otherwise, the most over-zealousness will be from you in your attempts to attack (as always) TTRC, Kampf, etc.

    1. So basically, NO you have no proof it is TTRC.

      I agree with all your points, but you can’t PROVE those are the people who did it.

      Like I said, it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened. But, unlike you, I refuse to point fingers or assign blame without proof.

      If you tried this in court, you would get laughed out of the courtroom…maybe that’s why you are no longer a practicing attorney?

  4. John:
    I was merely posting about Drucker to show that there was more than one camp that had this issue with overzealousness – I swear on a Bible if there had been an Onorato or Sestak sign in Schuylkill I would have included that – I was not deflecting but pointing out that both sides due to human nature have the same… It was not a Warren issue it is a TRC issue, Warren nor anyone from his camp climbed a tree and somehow affixed these three signs. I thought it was clever photographry that only showed Warren’s though when all three signs were up… This is one of those NON-gotcha moments, Pattye reported what happened, it got fixed and all are better for it.
    Last point from me – signs may be under the control of the committee and party but once they are distributed the ability to police what happens really does dissolve quickly. I am sure you know and understand this… Some overzealous Flyers Fan can take their orange towel and nail it to a tree, that does not make the Flyers culpable.

    1. By the time I saw the public works truck and the 2 workers up the tree removing the signs only one sign remained. Not trick or ‘clever’ photography – please don’t suggest it.

      To be clear on this subject — those signs were up 20-30 ft. from the ground. The base of that tree is below the road, at creek level. This was not some 5 min. project to either get those signs up or to get them down. I have polled a number of my friends and no one can remember ever seeing signs nailed to any tree in Tredyffrin (private or public property). Don’t know anything about Schuylkill Township, but certainly not in Tredyffrin.

      Although the park is relatively close to the township building, I would say it probabably took a minimum of 30 min. of time from start to finish the removal of the signs. So what is the $$ amount to the taxpayers for 2 public workers, truck and ladder — probably not very much. On the other hand, the township’s 2010 budget included significant staff reductions. The public works department is understaffed and any time and money spent wastefully is not acceptable. So although I am grateful to township staff for correctly the situation so quickly, I am troubled that it cost the taxpayers money for something so unnecessary.

  5. Pattye, my apologies – the picture clearly looks like the yellow toomey sign is still up there when the picture was taken. If that is not the case, please know I am wrong, not a first but I was not allegeding a conspiracy just pointing out that your Blog is centered around community matters and Warren matters more locally than Toomey. There is another picture on your site which shows all three signs. Glad you were able to get the rules enforced… Someone really went out of their way to get up there…

  6. Perhaps the next time someone sees a political sign or advertisement where it is not allowed, they can notify the campaign office responsible for the sign and let them handle the removal. This avoids putting the manager in the middle of a political issue and saves the township some time, effort and money.

    1. Maybe we can all be more civilized and not put them there in the first place

      I’m sure I know some firefighters who would have taken those signs down for free…. :)

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