Sunday is Witching Hour for Candidates: Deadline to Remove Campaign Signs

Last Sunday was Halloween. But this Sunday is scarier—if you're a candidate who hasn't yanked all your campaign signs.

Under La Mesa's Municipal Code, election signs—aka allowable temporary signs— "shall be removed no later than five days after the occurrence or completion of the event or election or other purposes served by the sign."

In other words, they have to be gone Monday.

The state goes easier, saying signs have to be "removed within 10 days after that election."

A revealing article in the San Diego Reader four years ago by Ernie Grimm of La Mesa discussed sign ordinances around the county, including La Mesa's.

An excerpt:

Like La Mesa, most cities in the county forbid placement of political signs in the public right-of-way. Exceptions are Poway and Santee. "They can be in the right-of-way," said Tommy, a planning department official for the City of Poway, "but not in the medians. And they can't be attached to fences or light posts or anything like that. They have to be sunk in the ground."

On a list of "frequently asked questions about election signs" e-mailed to me by Janet Peterson of the City of Santee, question number five, "May I install election signs in the public right-of-way?" is answered, "Yes, except within road medians." An answer later on the list states that signs in the right-of-way "are not subject to city permits. However, signs placed in such a manner so as to obstruct pedestrian, bicyclist, or driver views...must be removed."

La Mesa code dictates that political signs may be erected no sooner than 45 days before an election and must be taken down no later than 5 days after. That's one of the longer time frames allowed in the county. Escondido, for example, allows signs 30 days before and 10 days after an election. San Marcos allows 32 days before and 10 days after.

National City allows 30 before and 5 after. The City of Del Mar takes the approach of allowing 60 days' display of campaign signs in any calendar year. Morrison said these cities are treading upon the First Amendment by placing time limits on political signage.

"The most common legal problem with the rules on political signs," he explained, "is the cities usually state that you can only display them X number of days before the election and X number of days after. When someone cares enough to challenge those rules, the judges almost always invalidate [the rules]. The reason is, people have political opinions all the time, not just during election seasons. And if they want to express their political opinions before the election, they can."

This weekend, the vast majority of election signs will be gone in La Mesa.

But if they aren't, says the city's Nancy Neufeldt, here's a phone number to call: 619-667-1158.