Woman turns down peace offer on sign

She spurned the community board's plan to move a troop support sign from her yard to the community center.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published March 9, 2006

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TAMPA - There will be no compromise in the standoff between a soldier's wife and the Westchase Community Association board that wants her to remove a sign that reads "Support Our Troops."

"Bring it on. The sign stays," said Stacey Kelley, whose husband David is in Iraq with the U.S. Army.

After failing to persuade the board to let her keep the sign in her yard, Kelley walked out of a Westchase meeting in tears. The board regulates deed restrictions in the suburban community.

Board members had proposed an alternative. They would move her sign to the front of the Westchase Swim and Tennis Center, where Thursday's meeting was held, and display it there, along with a list of deployed and formerly deployed military people from the community.

"We're not saying put it in the shed and get rid of it," said Daryl Manning, president of the board and an Iraq War veteran himself.

"We're saying let it fly. Let it fly where everybody can see it."

They also voted to reduce the fine they had levied against her for having the red-white-and-blue sign in her yard, dropping it from $1,000 to $10, and paying that for her out of their own pockets. Kelley, 24, told the board she hated to tell her husband that the board wouldn't allow the sign to stay, because "it's going to break his heart."

She won't take the sign down or allow it to be moved, and she'll face the fines, which will go back up to $100 per day with a maximum of $1,000 per month, she said.

"They can get their own sign," Kelley said after the board's decision. There were about 50 people at the meeting. The board's decision was greeted with booing.

Staff writers Emily Nipps, Bill Coats, Jeffrey S. Solochek and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.