Campaign signs violate city regulations
Many candidates in the Associated Students of Utah State University elections have had to make changes to their campaigns since violations of Logan City sign codes were identified.
Detective Brad Sorensen, ordinance and code enforcement officer at the Logan City Police Department, said when ASUSU candidates began to spill over from campus to the city, they failed to follow city sign codes and regulations.
The City of Logan Community Development Code lists specific rules, regarding dimensions, contents, mounting and locations, for hanging signs in city zones. Sorensen said most of the ASUSU signs fall under the regulations for both political signs and banners.
“The first few days of the primary elections, there were numerous problems,” he said.
Sorensen said the problems were pointed out to ASUSU, and it worked to spread the word and get them fixed.
Tiffany Evans, director of student activities and leadership development, said, “This hasn’t been an issue in the past, but the students are creative, and as campaigning is limited more on campus, they begin to creep further into the city in order to expand the scope of their campaign.”
Evans said if the candidates live somewhere off campus, they might see it as a good place to campaign. They don’t keep their focus on campus as much.
Keri Mecham, assistant director of student activities, identified the main issues as being banners hanging from trees and in the public right-of-way.
Other regulations candidates need to comply with concern the mounting of banners and the location of them in relation to the street corner.
According to the City of Logan Land Development Code, all banners and signs must be firmly anchored by all four corners to the surface where they hang. Signs should not be located within 45 feet in both directions of a street corner.
After the problems were identified, candidates were informed by e-mail of the necessary changes and given a 24-hour period to make them. They were told violators would not only be subject to the Election Grievance Board but also receive citations from Logan City Police.
Ariel Thrapp, a candidate for executive vice president, said, “It’s good that the students are required to uphold the law within the community, but I was surprised by the e-mail.”
Ashley Stolworthy, a candidate for Public Relations vice president, said, “If we had known before, we would have conformed. We need to abide by the city laws. We just weren’t aware of them.”
Sorensen said most of the signs he saw were made from painted bed sheets, so almost all of them exceeded the 12-square-feet-dimension regulation.
Bethany Youngs, a candidate for Arts and Lectures, said she thinks the regulations could have an effect on future campaigns. “There’s an advantage to being able to have big banners so people can see them. In the future, candidates might have to go with a big or bold logo to catch attention.”
Candidates were told size requirements would not apply to this year’s election, because materials were already made.
Evans said, “The students put their time, energy and money into those signs, so we aren’t going to mess with that.”
She said in the fall, the new council will set the bylaws, and this will be an issue. She mentioned possible resolutions, such as working with Logan City to set a boundary policy to allow students to campaign freely in areas of student housing. Students may lobby the city council to make some kind of clause that would allow size adjustments during the 10 days of campaigning.
“The regulations are a little excessive,” Youngs said. “We want to keep the city looking nice, but our campaigns are only 10 days. USU is a big part of the community and should receive more support.”
Thrapp said, “Most candidates start planning their campaign and making signs when they pick up their campaign packet. If [ASUSU] will just let them know, they will enforce it.”
Sorensen said he will be participating in the preliminary planning meetings next year to present the regulations to the candidates beforehand.
“The students have already gone to all the work this year, so we won’t be as strict, but the regulations are there, and I get paid to enforce them, so in the future they need to be aware of the sign code,” he said.
–julia@cc.usu.edu