{DOORS OPENING}
Now that the mid-term elections are over, we can breath a sign of relief. I’ll keep this one brief so we can quickly forget they ever happened.
{PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE DOORS.}
I’m just glad this election season is dead and done with. Not just over who won what, but to be free of all the brain cell-shrinking advertisements, flyers, commercials, and other general political nausea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the whole election process, just not the ad(vertisement) nauseaum. Get it? Ge- oh, never mind.
If anyone has ever thought that the litter from the freebie newspapers was bad enough, it triples, if not quadruples during election seasons. And not just on trains, either. It’s at bus stops, parking lots, and at the stations. And sometimes, you’ll be lucky enough to get a flyer attached to your car when you come home from after a long day at work, ready and waiting to tell you why you should vote for Senator Googus or Representative Bort, and why they are the best thing to happen to you since sliced bread (which, by the way, they invented the year before).
The salt in the wound of all of this is that, win or lose, people running for office are required by law to take down and dispose of their printed materials. Not all of them comply, despite some municipalities that fine them for keeping them up past a certain point of time. So, it’s not uncommon to see Senator Googus’ signage still in the medians when Thanksgiving or Christmas rolls around.
Ahhh…America…Love it, or just leave it on the seat next to you. Someone will be by to pick it up later.
3 comments:
I always wondered whose responsibility it is to take down on all of the signs and posters. Fairfax County Parkway from 7 to Herndon-Monroe had some huge fields of Webb, Allen, and "VOTE YES TO THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT" (That was a huge sign, stretching across the entire median and standing as tall as I do, hence the ALL-CAPS :)
They quickly took down the huge sign warning voters to get out and vote against two people "living in sin" (all the while Britney & Fed-Ex marry & divorce with two "trailer-babies" lost in the shuffle, go figure). Quite a few of the Feder signs are still up. There were fewer Allen & Web signs this morning.
I always thought it was VDOT's poor job to clean up the election day mess?
If I understand it correctly, at least in Fairfax County, campaigners are resonsible for the cleanup, or they get fined a certain amount past a certain time, each day they remain up.
I'm not sure what the "break point" is as to when the county gets fed up and does it themselves (which I'm surprised that taxpayers don't go ballistic over; it is their money after all).
What might complicate matters further is under which jurisdiction that this would fall on. You might have Senator Googus' signage on both municipal and county roads; who has to do what and where?
The funny thing is that neither the winner or loser of an election is any greater of a violator of those laws.
According to the Fairfax County zoning regulations at:
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/zoningordinance/articles/art12.pdf
(5) No signs shall be erected for more than seventy-five (75) days prior to the nomination, election or referendum which they purport to advertise.
(6) All signs shall be removed within fifteen (15) days after the nomination, election or referendum.
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