Anti-Flock signs removed as Rolling Meadows debates license plate cameras

Accusations of sign stealing are frequent during election season, and while a dispute in Rolling Meadows doesn’t involve candidates for office, it does involve a hot-button issue of the day.

Rolling Meadows city inspectors have removed 57 of about 80 signs that were placed throughout town over the weekend by opponents of automated license-plate reading cameras, city officials and the anti-camera advocates confirm.

City leaders say the signs were on public property and rights-of-way — particularly, the parkway grass areas between sidewalks and street curbs — where municipal code prohibits political campaign signs, real estate signs and contractor signs, among others.

Organizers of the no-camera campaign admit many placards were placed near the street and on public property — indeed, 15 had arrows pointing up to identify individual cameras — but accused city hall of selective enforcement.

The sign dispute precipitates a scheduled Aug. 25 public meeting where city and police department brass plan to explain how the cameras work, how they’re used by police, and outline recent transparency and accountability reforms announced by camera manufacturer Flock Safety.

City council members will also have a decision point: whether to continue use of the cameras or not.

Police defend use of the devices — which capture images of passing vehicles’ license plates — as a needed public safety tool, helping them track criminals, locate missing people and find stolen vehicles. Opponents raise privacy concerns and point to the potential for misuse, from unconstitutional surveillance to immigration enforcement.

Chris Olson, organizer of the sign campaign and creator of the RMnoFlock.com website, has been coming to council meetings in recent months to call for the cameras’ removal.

“People feel like their Fourth Amendment right is threatened by this issue and feel like their First Amendment right is being taken away,” Olson wrote City Manager Rob Sabo in an email exchange. “People are mad and now feel like they are being singled out for speaking out and that can feel like intimidation.”

Olson said he believes the city removed signs that people wanted at their house and “used the (right-of-way) reason to do it.” Many of the plastic boards were placed next to other advertisements for political candidates, church functions, block parties and businesses, he said.

“The city doesn’t usually enforce this so the timing of this enforcement feels targeted,” he said in an interview.

Sabo characterized the removals as a “routine code enforcement practice,” and said the city’s rules mirror what other municipalities have on the books.

Signs may be placed within the yards of private property owners with their consent, Sabo added.

Glen Cole, the assistant city manager and community development director, said he and other members of city staff noticed the signs in a number of highly visible public locations at the start of their workday Monday, following Olson’s installation of the signs Saturday and Sunday. Cole said they also received a complaint to the police department’s email inbox.

He denied anyone’s rights were threatened and said city code was being enforced as written, regardless of message.

“Our inspectors know the difference between public and private property,” Cole wrote Olson in the email exchange. “They remove signs from the right-of-way and not from yards. These rules apply to all yard signs and we enforce them fairly. Indeed, our staff has removed election signs belonging to sitting members of the city council under these same rules.”

Cole allowed Olson to pick up the signs collected by city inspectors at city hall; Olson said he did so Tuesday.

Olson said about a dozen signs remain in place throughout town, but he’s working to redistribute the ones he got back to anyone who wants them.

cplacek@dailyherald.com