Winfield settles campaign sign dispute

After a long and sometimes heated public discussion about whether Winfield has the power to enforce regulations on campaign signs, village trustees had a "Brady Bunch" moment with a political candidate who has agreed to reduce the size of some signs.

"I don't mind laying down my sword if you are willing to lay down yours," village president candidate Tony Reyes told trustees during Thursday's board meeting. "It's not my intent to have this village spend one more dollar or one more minute on this subject."

The village board ended up spending more than an hour debating the campaign sign issue because staff members were seeking direction on how to deal with signs that might be in violation of Winfield's long-standing sign ordinance.

Village officials said they received complaints from residents claiming that several signs supporting Reyes are too big or have been up for too long. According to the village's sign law, campaign signs must be no more than 6 square feet and can't be up longer than 30 days.

Reyes' opponents - Village President Rudy Czech and trustees Deborah Birutis and Angel Oakley - don't have any signs up yet.

While Reyes conceded some of his supporters put signs up early, he argued that Winfield's sign law is poorly written, unenforceable and violates the constitutional rights of residents who have political signs on their properties.

"When people 60 days ago or 30 days ago asked me for a sign, because they want change in this town ... I felt compelled to go ahead and give them signs," he said. "And some of them put them up, and some of them have them in their garage. It's their right to put them up."

Reyes also said village leaders knew there were problems with the sign law and tried to change it. Indeed, a committee was formed last year to rewrite the ordinance, but the planned overhaul was never completed.

That didn't stop one of Reyes' political opponents from criticizing him during the meeting.

"It's very unsettling that someone running for president of our village would take the position of just clearly disregarding the ordinance altogether, rather than addressing it with the board," Oakley said.

The debate became more heated when Reyes accused the village of trying to enforce the sign law because his three opponents are on the board. "I think it's a mistake on your part to do something for the first time because it's politically expedient," he said.

Village officials stressed the law isn't being selectively enforced.

Then the discussion came to a sudden conclusion when Reyes agreed that some of his signs "are too large." He said he will work with village officials to reduce the size of those signs.

Meanwhile, the village won't try to remove any campaign signs that have been up for more than 30 days. And efforts will be made to rewrite the sign law and bring it up to date, officials said.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=276797"> Campaign raise questions about Winfield sign ordinance <span class="date">[03/06/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>