My wife and I own a nice place on a corner in the Flair neighborhood along Douglas road. Granted, the lawn is full of dandelions and crab grass but I do my best to keep it cut and hopefully looking somewhat appealing. I mow the lawn all the way out to the curb which is crumbling and showing either its years or the poor quality of the concrete it was built with. I don’t know exactly what various political rights our tiered governmental entities might assert over my property, but I do know that I take care of it right up to that curb, thus feel that it is my responsibility, my land.
It so happens that my little corner of paradise has great sight lines when you are driving along Douglas Road, making it valuable for conveying messages to the public. I like using it to express my first amendment rights and support for those political candidates whom I feel will best serve our collective interest. So I seek them out or they come to me and ask permission to put up their campaign signs on my corner.
In the past, I’ve had instances where those signs have been vandalized. Lately though, a different form of disrespect has been cropping up. Paul Bulanov and Ramon Llanos, candidates for the Ferndale City Council, or their supporters have seen fit to place their campaign signs on my corner without permission so as to obscure/block the signs of candidates I do support. I find this very disrespectful and assume, warranted or not, that this reflects the regard that these candidates hold for the citizens of Ferndale.
As for regulation of signs, the Ferndale City Code defines political and campaign signs but makes no specific rules as to their placement, despite the infuriatingly complex morass of regulation . Whatcom county on the other hand explicitly states: “3) Sign installers must have permission of the underlying property owner prior to placing signs.”
Fortunately, the political/campaign sign fairies or gnomes (not sure which) usually see fit to move the signs down the road to land owned by some property development corporation. Maybe they won’t be so benevolent in the future.
Gayland Gump
Ferndale
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On Orcas Island, the realtors have banned for sale signs BUT WE ARE SWAMPED BY CAMPAIGN POSTERS