Nation, the writ was dropped a week ago today, and the battle for real estate is well underway.
The placement of lawn signs has been much-debated, and came up at daveberta.
Anecdotally, as I've travelled in and around Calgary over this past week, I've seen a lot of PC signs, nearly as many Liberal signs, and a grand total of ZERO signs for the NDP and WAP.
Guys... there's an ELECTION going on... we've known this was coming for months, now... WAP I can understand - they just picked a logo. NDP, what's your excuse?
In terms of placement - most of the PC signs are on residential lawns. The only PC's I've seen with signs that break the rules for placement are Alison Redford and Arthur Kent. The only Liberal sign I've seen that DIDN'T break the rules was one for Dave Taylor, in Mount Royal. Every other Liberal sign I've seen has been on public land along a major route - in what I understand to be direct violation of city rules. An independant candidate in my own riding has also chosen to violate the rules, and many of his signs are located right next to Liberal signs (notable exceptions: the signs he has placed on church property, and the signs he placed on the property of the Carriage House Inn - location of this week-end's Wildrose Alliance campaign launch. They're running a candidate against him).
I'm not privy to the instructions that the sign crews are receiving... but, in the election where I served on a sign crew for a PC candidate, I was told in no uncertain terms "Keep the signs off major routes, and within the rules - a sign along Anderson Road says 'I've got too much money'. A sign on someone's lawn says 'a real, voting human being who lives here supports me and what I stand for'."
Nation? What are you seeing?
... an attempt to make sense of politics and political happenings in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and North America.
7 comments:
On the city's sign bylaw page, it lists prohibited streets
http://www.calgary.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_523812_0_0_18/Signs.htm
The link to the official bylaws PDF is there. A lot of these tend to be broken (such as not within 30m of an intersection) during an election - and we also know that most signs tend not to come down within 24 hours, either.
Your understanding of the "rules" is seriously misguided. A quick read of the city of Calgary's sign bylaw will tell you that there are only certain streets where signs are not allowed (major roadways such as Deerfoot, Crowchild, etc).
The sign war is over rated anyway.
What they said. There are actually very few areas of public land where signs are prohibited, and you can bet that not only the bylaw officers are on it, but the other campaigns are relentless about reporting illegal signs. That's why, for example, you will see a million signs on the intersection of 14th Street near Glenmore Landing -- that particular corner is private property.
As for my wanderings, I have not seen ANY lawn signs in the NE yet, but in McCall, both the Tory and the Liberal candidate got their big (and I mean GIANT) signs up the day the writ was dropped, and they're pretty matched one-for-one. I saw one ND sign, but it was left over from the last election (or the one before -- the candidate keeps running) -- old colours, old logo, etc.
the url I gave is too long for your comments... so here's the tinyurl version
http://tinyurl.com/24f3zh
Anon: Kirk kindly provided the URL, and the rules are quite clear. As I never went into great detail with my understanding of them, why you would declare my understanding as "seriously misguided" is beyond me. I didn't even identify which streets I was seeing signs on.
Have you and I have a long, in-depth discussion about sign rules lately that I'm unaware of? Or did I just strike a nerve? ;)
I just saw my first lawn sign! 29th St NW, near the Foothills Hospital, for .... the NDP. Wow.
I live in Calgary West, and I have yet to see a Liberal sign... or a Liberal for that matter ;-)
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