After every election in Maryland, teams from Montgomery County hit the road for a unique harvest — removing the illegally placed campaign signs along county roadways.
Greg Nichols is the code compliance manager at the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services. He was blunt when asked about the practice of sticking signs in the ground near the road.
“It’s not safe. It’s not cool, to be honest, and it’s illegal,” Nichols said.
He said the signs are a distraction to drivers, and they are a frequent source of complaints, particularly after elections.
“Everybody concentrates on the fact that it’s a blight,” Nichols said.
But he said his focus is on the safety issue.
It’s not just political signs that get swept up. Nichols said nonprofits or community groups will also post signs. Small businesses do too, he said, and he questioned their usefulness.
“What’s the reality of you coming up on an intersection, you’re going to read a letter that’s 2 inches tall and you’ll read a phone number?” he said.
There are penalties for posting the signs. In Montgomery County, it could come at a cost as high as $500.
“Technically, we could do it for each sign, but what we normally try to do is get an abatement order from the District Court,” Nichols said.
If the organization posting the sign ignores that order, the responsible party could be brought before a judge and face contempt charges, but Nichols said his department tries to focus on prevention.
“We give them a warning, we educate them,” he said, adding that often solves the issue.
Montgomery County’s Department of Permitting Services receives complaints from residents about clusters of illegal signs along state roads, such as Georgia Avenue and Clopper Road. Nichols said the county doesn’t have the authority to address those roads, which are under the jurisdiction of the State Highway Administration.
While his office gets lots of complaints about the signs, Nichols said it also gets positive feedback about the work to remove them.
At one spot in the Germantown area on Wednesday morning, he said, “It’s amazing, you’ll just have people that are walking their dogs or whatever, and they’re just like, ‘Thank you, thank you for picking this stuff up.'”
According to the county DPS, they’ve picked up about 1,050 signs in the past few weeks.
To report a complaint about a sign, visit the Montgomery County department’s website to fill out a form.
If the signs are along a state road, fill out a complaint with the Maryland Department of Transportation instead.
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