'Bring it on. The sign stays'
A woman declines to compromise in a dispute with the Westchase board over a troop support sign.
By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published March 10, 2006
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 Army.
After failing to persuade the board members 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 if fly where everybody can see it."
Kelley placed the sign in the front yard of her Westchase villa in December. She was notified last month that it violated deed restrictions in the 3,500-home master planned community and would have to come down.
Manning said the board had racked its brains trying to come up with an acceptable solution to the standoff.
Along with relocating the sign to a common area, members 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.
The board members are not without sympathy, Manning said. Four of the seven are veterans.
"I think we can identify with some of the things you have mentioned and some of the things your husband is going through," he said.
The board also said it would contact Westchase Elementary School about starting a letter-writing campaign to the troops in Iraq, promote community awareness about sending care packages, take out an advertisement in World of Westchase community magazine supporting the troops and encourage the editor to write a story about what Kelley and her husband had been going through.
There were about 50 people at the meeting. The board's decision was greeted with boos.
"It still hurts me that I wouldn't be able to display anything at my house for when he comes home," Kelley said.
She might reconsider allowing the sign to be moved, she said, if every one of the 28 neighborhoods that make up the suburban complex of Westchase had similar signs at its entrance.
Jovanna Hoagland of the Fords, a Westchase neighborhood, said after the vote that she was unhappy that the board made a decision without hearing from residents. "It's an embarrassment to the community," she said.
"It breaks my heart and it brings me to tears because I know the hurt and the pain she's going through on a daily basis," Hoagland said, noting that her son is in the military.
The ribbon-shaped "Support Our Troops" sign has a special significance to her, Kelley said in an interview before the meeting. Her husband, a private first class in the Army, ordered the sign for her to display in the couple's front yard while he was deployed in Iraq.
Manning said the issue has nothing to do with Westchase's level of military support. The words "Support Our Troops" recently appeared on the official signs leading into the neighborhood.
"I'm in 100 percent support of the troops, but I'm also cognizant of the rules and regulations that are in place in Westchase," Manning said. "As homeowners, that's what we all agreed upon when we purchased our homes."
David Kelley, who is still deployed, told his wife to stand her ground. He said, "If that's what we have to use our hard earned money on, we'll use it."
The rules allow "For Sale" and "For Rent" signs in front yards. Political campaign signs are off limits. Manning said a state ordinance does allow alarm company signs.
"Our troops are our nation's security alarm," said Kelley, who was prepared to add "protected by our troops" above her sign.
Thursday, Manning's phone was ringing off the hook. He said people, some calling from as far as New York and Pennsylvania, were pretty evenly split - half were in total support of Kelley's sign and half were in favor of upholding the rules.
Westchase runs a tight ship in order to keep property values up. The strict rules ensure that vessels stay out of the front yards and grass stays green and trimmed. The rules keep a fuchsia house from popping up next door.
Kelley said no one in her 66-unit Stonebridge neighborhood has had a problem with the sign. She's only gotten positive feedback, including a telephone call from the chaplain at MacDill Air Force Base, who offered his support.
"When you see it, it kind of jogs your mind," Kelley's neighbor Barbara Mulvihill said of the sign. "It makes you stop and think."