Photo: Marianna Faiello/WUFT News
“Signs in colors ranging from the patriotic red, white and blue to eye-catching yellows, oranges, greens and more. You can’t avoid seeing them this time of year, especially with an election on Tuesday.
‘It’s ugly,’ said Alachua County Commissioner Mike Byerly. ‘They’re everywhere…’
While it’s permitted for signs to be placed anywhere on private property, the public’s land cannot be used for advertising purposes, political or otherwise. And this includes rights-of-ways — areas of publicly-owned land maintained in and around public streets.
A county code prohibited citizens from removing signs illegally placed in rights-of-way because it was state property. The responsibility of removal was left to public work crews — until recently.
Right-of-way sign placement became the focus at a recent board of county commissioners’ meeting. By the time the meeting was over, changes were made to an ordinance that limited the removal of signs.
The changes are now in effect.
Now it’s legal for regular citizens to remove right-of-way signs and destroy them.
The board of commissioners also changed the code to define illegally placed signs as abandoned property and trash so that public work crews can throw them away. Before, crews had to bring such signs back to a holding facility.
Byerly worked with Corbin Hanson, a county attorney, to change the ordinance’s wording so that anyone can remove signs that are placed illegally — meaning placement that doesn’t meet the city, county or state standards set by the Transportation Department…”
— Marianna Faiello,WUFT