Political signs clutter Valley landscape

ALTON - The Rio Grande Valley landscape is becoming as crowded with advertising as the Las Vegas strip as city and school board elections loom across Hidalgo County.

Increasingly large, colorful and sturdy, political signs are a mainstay of election season, but too frequently overstay their welcome.

Now, new signs are fighting for space with the leftovers from the March 4 primary and April 8 runoff elections.

In Alton, the municipal government removed a sign for City Commission candidates Ricardo Garza, Richard Arevalo and Emilio Cantu Jr. on Thursday that opposition candidates complained was blocking sightlines for drivers trying to turn onto busy 5 Mile Line.

"Their sign is covering the traffic coming from the west side," said Jose Picasso, an Alton commissioner who is campaigning to keep his seat against Arevalo and unaligned candidate Rigo Martinez.

Martinez said two of his signs have been stolen in the last week, removed from two other intersections along 5 Mile Line, Alton's biggest east-west street.

"I was kind of upset," he said. "Each sign cost $45, and that doesn't include the two-by-fours" that held it upright.

Small dust-ups over stolen, inaccurate or badly placed signs occur across the country. Although many cities have specific ordinances to restrict when and where signs may be placed, those rules are frequently bent.

Every year, cities have to pull down signs placed too close to roads or on public property, while the Texas Department of Transportation pulls down anything placed in its rights-of-way.

In Edinburg, signs for Hidalgo County Precinct 4 constable candidates still line the roads more than a week after Eddie Guerra won the position in a runoff. In Pharr, a "Hillary for Texas" sign supporting Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton still greets those heading west on Nolana, more than a month after Texas' Democratic primary election.

And in McAllen, the morning after the March 4 primary and its late-night caucuses, custodians at the Family Church had to clean up and throw away pounds of plastic and cardboard left behind by supporters of local and national candidates.

Some cities, concerned with the heavy plastic material used for many signs in recent years, have begun to view political signs as an environmental hazard as well as a potential nuisance.

Austin plans to begin recycling campaign signs after its May 10 city elections, although shinier signs may be harder to process and reuse.

Meanwhile, across the Internet, crafty do-it-yourselfers offer instructions on turning sturdy signs into bicycle fenders, yard sale ads, model airplanes and gardening implements, suggesting a second life for ephemeral advertisements.
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Sara Perkins covers Mission, western Hidalgo County, Starr County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4472.