Monday, May 03, 2010

$500 reward for arrest and conviction of Virginia sign thiefs! Sign wars get ugly.

NOT COOL! I know that all political campaigns have the sign attrition thing happen. Fingers get pointed and accusations fly. But we just so happened to have a person with a camera witness a sign removal and took a picture of the perpetrators. This person was threatened by these two crass offenders who were pretty ballsy to do in broad daylight. And this is after other eye witnesses seen others. One was an elderly lady that called the Bass campaign after she said someone in a black Honda pulled over, a young lady jumped out, opened her gate and took a sign and jumped in the car and drove off before the elderly lady could get the license plate number! I was texted this picture with a shopping Kart on K ST someone was collecting our signs with. Again, in daylight! And we are estimating nearly 100 signs gone! We still have many hundred out there, but that isn't the point.

Has someone put a bounty out there on the Bass signs? And if they did, how can they sleep at night? So please, if you know these people above, please call the Eureka Police at 441-4060 with information. Upon the arrest and conviction of those guilty, the Bass campaign will reward the informant $500. Maybe this will be a deterrent for future sign shenanigans.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep Eureka Beautiful Richard

Anonymous said...

Put it on Twitter just now after Chris came by...thx Richard!

Kym said...

I don't understand people taking down signs--Democracy's about putting ideas and candidates out there so people can look at them and decide.

Tapperass said...

I just posted the picture I took of a destroyed lawn sign on my blog.

What the hell?

Capdiamont said...

I retwited Macie's tweet.

sad to hear this going on.

Anonymous said...

Maybe you can get the T-S to do an article on it with the reward info. Always good for more publicity and people will wonder is there has been a bounty put on the signs and if so by who.

samoasoftball said...

I got a hot tip on one of the guys. I will be following up on soon.

If you want to help, email samoafog@aol.com.

Anonymous said...

Pretty nice bike/trailer combo this guy has. I could be wrong, but these two may NOT be otherwise gainfully employed.

Capdiamont said...

I tried emailing you before, about the attempted break ins at the roundhouse, but no response back.

dog said...

Kym's right

It appears that someone out there is feeling insecure.

I would like to think that some feel Virginia B's sign might someday be collector's items. But, my guess is that Virginia would happily give a sign to someone who wanted one, that they could keep for posterity or for whatever other reason.

Democracy is about the free exchange of ideas and a certain tolerance for those who do not agree.

Richard, I hope you have something tangible and that accountability is demanded if this proves to be an antic or tactic of Bonnie or Jeff's campaign

samoasoftball said...

dog: You are correct. Virginia would be more than willing to give up a sign to anyone. We just want this all above board. We are nearing 1,000 signs out there.

I have been in the sign wars before with Bonnie and Nancy Flemming in 2006. We pretty much matched Bonnie at nearly 300 signs. (With very little signs disappearing.) Bonnie does not have near the sign placements as she had then and I would guess Jeff at 150. (Placements not signs)

I have seen very little sign removals of Jeff or Bonnie, but then, they don't have nearly the volume the Bass campaign has out. And I have walked the district from one side to the other.

This is the worst sign problems I have witnessed in any race. We just keep plowing along and replanting signs and wonder who would stoop to this level.

dog said...

Well Richard

I am not much of a political guy.

But it seems to me that if that many signs are missing, somebody is getting pretty squirrelly about it.

I have met Jeff and don't think he would do that.

He's tedious but, honest.

So what do you think is up with this?

mresquan said...

"Bonnie does not have near the sign placements as she had then and I would guess Jeff at 150. (Placements not signs)"

Try not to get caught up in that and judging any sort of level of support by it.That likely has more to do with the terrible campaign she is running,more so than Virginia being a more popular candidate.
And at this point,I'd say that the Kerrigan/Bohn sign wars were worse than what we have seen so far here.

Ken Bareilles, Jr said...

Hey Richard,
Good luck getting the signs replaced. I think it is stupid when people trash each others signs. Any gain by taking the sign down is totally outweighed by the negative spin.

Are you watching the debate tonight between Bonnie, Jeff and Virginia.
It's on KEET at 7:00 pm.

I think they are shooting at the Humboldt Hill studio and sending it out live.

Do you remember when I called you up and suggested you moderate a debate between Bonnie and Nancy? That would have been a good show.

samoasoftball said...

Ken: I will be watching that big time.

And I did challenge them to debate at the cookhouse and had taken care of all the details. Bonnie's camp would not let her participate. That would have been a good show!

Ken Bareilles, Jr said...

Too bad about Bonnie turning down the debate with Nancy.

Tonight, I'm popping popcorn.

Barb Leonard said...

We are not responsible for any strategy that involves the destruction or theft of our opponent's signs.

Just wanted to go on record because I see some have already lept to the conclusion of Jeff or Bonnie's campaigns being involved.

I am sorry to say sign theft just goes with the political territory. We have had many signs removed, some disappeared, others we found and replaced.

It's part of the graffiti culture IMO. People who have nothing better to do than damage property in one way or another.

Good luck on trying to nail them.

Barb Leonard

Suzy Gaxiola said...

Richard,

All of us working on Jeff's campaign share your frustration over the sign removal situation as we too are losing signs. I would guess the percentage is the same across the board.

I hope these fellows are caught. I would imagine the motivation behind grown men brazenly taking signs for a local campaign lies in a hatred of the entire system and would not be directed at any specific candidate. I have heard that teens do some of the grabbing and either ditch the signs or thinking it is funny to replace them in unsuspecting yards. That kind of shenanigans would certainly explains how several people I have talked to door to door with Bass signs in their yards have no idea why they are there or who put them there without permission.

Anonymous said...

The Leonard campaign seems particularly defensive and in Suzi's case unfairly antagonistic. Wonder what's up there?

Anonymous said...

Bonnie has had 200 signs so far disappear. Sounds like more than double than Virginia has lost to date.

Capdiamont said...

Why is the Samoa Fire District in the red? Is there good links to find this out?

samoasoftball said...

All the signs being uprooted are a concern. No matter who the candidate is. I just so happen to have proof through these photos and are closing in on identification.

CAP- The Samoa Peninsula Fire District is in deep financial straights. We have retirees that have benefits that are draining our shrinking district. We are barely staying afloat out here on the Peninsula.

Anonymous said...

Good union benefits that most districts cant afford, especially in these difficult times.

Sooner or later the state, as well as all of the special districts, counties and cities will switch to defined contribution plans instead of the defined benefit plans that are bankrupting the aformentioned agencies.

See Vallejo for a great example.

Capdiamont said...

NAN was saying the deficit was your fault, IE under your watch.

samoasoftball said...

Cap: I didn't shut the mills. We are a volunteer Fire Department without even a chief. But there were agreements made way before my time to compensate past chiefs with retirement/health benefits at a rate they could afford when there was commerce on the peninsula. But we keep hanging in there. It is not like we are on a spending fest.

Capdiamont said...

I figured that Richard, but you know how mentally incompetent some people over there can be.

Anonymous said...

Of course, when looking for "mental competence" we should always turn to Capdiamont.

Anonymous said...

I betcha Bonnie lost more than anyone

Eric V. Kirk said...

I don't know if we're missing signs down here, but a few have been hit with graffiti.

Hairy nose said...

Hmmmm , that's funny . Usually they'll blame " Hairy nose " for doing it . Opps , i guess there finding out the truth that " Hairy nose " never did anything in the past . Well , the truth comes out ( finally ! )

Anonymous said...

Even though , Hairy Nose is 750 miles away they'll through their ignorance blame him on the thrashing / stealing of signs . Just like they did during the last election .

samoasoftball said...

The dude with the bike rode by the Chicken By the Sea event today! I was too busy to confront.

Sane Wane said...

Speaking of " Hairy Nose " . He just did an MTV shoot for the Band , Revenged Seven " in Los Angeles last week . Name of it is ; " Nightmare " .You can see his picture of him during lunch at the shoot by going to IMDb . He played a Doctor / Surgeon .

Mike T. said...

It's Revenge Sevenfold , silly & his name is ; Jerry Dro.......well i left off the last letter of his name . I just went to IMDb c/o the former Mayoral candidate and saw his picture as a Doctor . It looks like he's got lot of make up on . The name of the shoot is " nightmare " by , Revenge Sevenfold . Its coming out in July . He's a great Actor !

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