Days after the Nov. 6 election, campaign signs could still be seen on lawns, private fences and in front of businesses.
A week later, most have disappeared, finally removed after campaign season has ended — and the remaining ones don’t have much time left before they will be forcibly taken down by the city.
Campaign signs placed in city limits have 10 days after the election to come down, Santa Clarita city officials said.
There are strict rules about where political signs can be placed during campaigns – private property only, and not on any public right of way, said Danny Rivas, the city’s community preservation manager.
“The signs you’re still seeing up today are still in compliance with the code,” he said. “Our code allows private property owners 10 days after the election to take down the signs.”
If a property still has signs after that point, and a citizen complains, the city’s code enforcement officers will go out to enforce the complaint.
“If it’s brought to our attention, our code enforcement officers would issue a notice of violation informing the property owner that they need to remove whatever outstanding signs remain on their property,” Rivas said.
All campaign signs in Santa Clarita would have already been removed from public property shortly after going up. As the signs are only allowed on private property, code enforcement officers are frequently surveying public areas for stray signs placed by mistake.
“People place signs on public property on accident all the time,” Rivas said. “One place is the strip of grass that is the landscape area between the sidewalk and the street. You have plenty of areas like that throughout major thoroughfares, but that strip of grass is technically a public right of way. That is probably the most frequent place we see folks put signs.
“Sometimes you even have folks put signs on public fencing, like on a chain link fence that’s near a storm drain,” he said. “We always remove those proactively as soon as we see them. We don’t wait for calls or any 10-day time frame.”
