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At least signs will get new life after bother

By JEFF WEBB
Published November 5, 2006

Pet peeve question of the day: Which is more annoying? Campaign signs intentionally meant to distract you while you're driving, or the candidates' mass mailings that are filling up your garbage?

If you said roadside signs, we have something in common. At least the mailings provide you with reading material, even if it is an onerous task to decipher what information is true, false, embellished or misleading.

But campaign signs? Let's call them what they are: meaningless, ineffective eyesores. Think about it: Do you know anyone who has ever cast a vote - or who actually would admit it - for a candidate because he liked the signs?

Yet, almost all candidates continue to spend a considerable amount of money and time on signage. Despite all of the other traditional and high-tech advertising mediums available for candidates to get out their message, it seems that the once-every-two-years planting of signs is a political ritual that is here to stay.

Candidates who plan to make another run at elected office save their placards for the next campaign. But the signs of those who are calling it quits usually wind up being carted to their final resting place at the county landfill.

However, that waste of wood, metal and plastic is about to end in a few Florida counties, including Hernando.

A bill passed by the Legislature in 2005 instructed the state Department of Environmental Protection to establish a pilot program to reuse the materials in campaign signs. The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Paula Dockery, the Lakeland Republican whose sprawling district includes eastern Hernando, and Rep. David Russell, R-Brooksville, which helps to explain how Hernando is one of only six counties to be selected for the experiment. Brooksville resident and City Council candidate Lara Bradburn also had a hand in crafting the law and following up with the DEP and the counties that agreed to participate.

The state is spending roughly $10,000 in each county to get the program up and running, but it's not costing Hernando County government anything other than the labor of its employees to empty the bins that have been placed at the landfill and the east and west transfer stations, and to respond to requests from groups or organizations that want the signs.

Signs that no one wants are dismantled, and their materials will be recycled. Sometimes county government is the beneficiary.

"In some cases, we take the wood stakes and reuse them to post our own signs," said code enforcement director Frank McDowell, who estimated that his employees have collected more than 900 illegally placed campaign signs this election season.

Being a waste-not, want-not type, I appreciate the obvious environmental benefit of this pilot program. It is a small comfort to look at tacky signs and know that at least some will serve a purpose more than cluttering the landscape.

And it makes a lot more sense to recycle the signs than it does to recycle the politicians.

Jeff Webb can be reached at (352) 754-6123 or webb@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 5, 2006, 01:36:00]