In this election season, the sign blight is again upon us. Of course, political signs, set back on front lawns, are the traditional American way to broadcast one’s political preferences to neighbors. But another matter entirely are those roadside signs, often in carpet-bombing quantity and of neon-garish color, that bring the feel of Route 1 into our fair neighborhoods.
Temporary signs, including political signs, are not allowed at roadsides in West Windsor. The 2009 township code is crystal clear: “There shall be no placement of such signs between public roads and sidewalks or within six feet of a public road where no sidewalk exists.” https://tinyurl.com/wwscode has the full ordinance.
Despite this, both slates running for Council — one more than the other — condone the open flouting of these rules by allowing placement of their promotional signs at roadsides, meaning, here, in the code’s prohibited area up to the sidewalk or six-foot setback. Surely these restrictions are known to the candidates, many of them having run before in the six years the rules have been in place.
It doesn’t help that in September, 2013, Land Use Manager Sam Surtees wrote faulty guidance implying an exception for signs to be allowed between sidewalks and roads depending on the land survey status of the road. No such exception exists to the rule against roadside placement, a fact that anyone who took five minutes to read the relevant section of the code would know. Yet some Council candidates disingenuously cite this faulty guidance to justify placing their signs at roadsides, creating eyesores.
We shouldn’t abandon common sense and require hyper-compliance with the rules. Those few hand-crafted signs announcing the school musicals and flea markets? Perhaps we can all agree to look the other way on those. But the mass-produced, blaring election signs, placed by the dozen, those are what the roadside rule is about, and candidates should respect it.
So what is a resident with sore eyes to do? Town executives appear unable to understand the code much less enforce it. The most effective remedy is the same as with ads for diet pills that pop up on your computer screen: don’t buy the product. In this case that means not voting for candidates promoted by illegally placed roadside signs. That would help keep off the Council candidates who lack the job skill of being able to read the township code. It might even have the effect of deterring roadside signs in future elections. Then our streets would look less like the circus has come to town, true though that may be in this election season.
John Hinsdale
Quaker Road, Princeton Junction
