Councillors Want Campaign Signs Removed From Properties

The general election was Nov. 4, 2018, so why do some candidates still have their political signs on properties throughout the city?

Revere councillors addressed that issue at Monday’s meeting, with Councillor Ira Novoselsky offering a motion that Mayor Brian Arrigo ask the Election Department and Inspectional Services to contact property owners to remove political signs from the election.

“In traveling around the city, there are still political signs from state and Suffolk County offices that are still up on people’s fences since last November,” said Novoselsky. “We’re trying to keep the city clean. They want our votes, but they have no respect for us. They leave their signs up and they become ripped, hanging. It’s just disgusting.”

Novoselsky said he wants the property owners or the candidates themselves “to take them down.”

Councillor Anthony Zambuto said the signs are “an eyesore and it’s disgraceful. It’s an insult to Revere.”

Councillor John Powers said he spoke with Election Commissioner Diane Colella about the matter two weeks ago and she told him she would look in to it. “One of the areas in particular that really offended me, to no end, was Mahoney Circle (Bell Circle). There were five or six signs on that day, and the reason we got back from DPW was that it was private property and they couldn’t go on there. They went to the business there and they said they didn’t own the property. There has to be a plan to make sure that all of these signs are down seven days after an election. It makes the city look bad and it makes the statement to people coming through the city that perhaps the city just doesn’t care.”

Council President Arthur Guinasso said there is a city ordinance that states that after “X number of days, political signs have to come down.”

“It’s not that we don’t have a plan in place, we just don’t have enforcement of it,” said Guinasso. “The right way to handle this is that we call Diane Colella and she does whatever she has to do to get those [signs] removed.”

The Council unanimously approved Novoselsky’s motion.