| Examiner Coverage |
|
|
Fairfax County is trying to rid its roadways of an infestation — of campaign signs. “This past year it was way over the top. Just awful. It was chaos,” said County Board Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, D-at large. “There were so many people on the ballot. They were up for such a long period of the time.”
State law currently forbids the signs from being placed along roads that are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation. But a quirk in the law also specifically forbids Fairfax from removing the signs. The state has the authority to remove the signs, but it says it doesn’t have the money to do so.
So the Fairfax board agreed to look into what it has to do to remove the campaign signs the way other counties, including Prince William and Loudoun, already can. And it’s supporting state legislation that would allow Fairfax to do that.
“It’s illegal to put them up but it’s illegal to take them down,” said Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, who began pressing to get rid of the signs after a constituent contacted him to complain about Herrity’s own roadside campaign signs.
“The standard answer back is, ‘Because everybody else does,’ and they said, ‘That’s not good enough,’ and I think my constituent was right,” he said.
Fairfax officials are specifically targeting campaign signs and unattractive commercial signs that say things like “Lose Weight Fast” or “Junk Be Gone.” But Bulova said she wants to allow real estate agencies to post roadside signs advertising properties for sale even though those also are prohibited.
“The issue of signs is not easy,” Bulova said. “There are good signs and bad signs.”
But with 99 people on the ballot in Fairfax County in this year’s election, the proliferation of campaign signs was too much for the county, she said.
“Not only was it chaotic, it was also dangerous with people’s vision [impaired] when they were making a left-hand turn,” she said.
