PAMELA BAKER, San Clemente
During this year’s election, in certain parts of our city and at major intersections, our city appeared to be overtaken with illegally placed political signs per San Clemente’s sign ordinance.
I call it litter. There is no excuse for this. Candidates running for the first time did not do their homework regarding this ordinance or simply chose to ignore it.
The current councilmember who ran apparently knew but chose to ignore it. The candidates running who were former councilmembers also chose to ignore it. If they didn’t know the ordinance, pathetic.
Because of the plethora of these signs that remained in place for weeks, this gave license for others to do likewise. Business advertising signs started appearing in illegally placed venues.
Is code enforcement at fault for not removing these signs? Candidates who should know better chose to ignore our sign ordinance, causing code enforcement more work than should be necessary and taking time away from more important code enforcement issues.
Shame on all of you. We were voting for candidates to uphold the rules of our city. A very simple, basic one was disrespected while you were campaigning to gain residents’ respect.
San Clemente has a graffiti hotline. Call them when you see it. San Clemente has a sign ordinance. Call code enforcement when it is being violated.
The irony of this (is that) a resident who removes a political sign (cleaning up graffiti or litter) is subject to more punishment than the perpetrators.
