Mooresville removes election signs from public property

MOORESVILLE — Campaign signs are often found alongside local roads and streets during an election cycle, but Mooresvile Town Council President Shane Williams has put an end to that practice — at least on town property.

In recent weeks, candidates for office at the county and state level have been placing signs throughout Morgan County in anticipation of the Indiana primary.

Originally, the primary was set for May 5, but has been rescheduled for June 2 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

While campaign signs can be found throughout Morgan County, residents in Mooresville may have noticed a few less signs in town.

Campaign signs were recently removed after Williams directed the town’s public works superintendent Dave Moore to have the signs taken down that were placed in town rights of way.

Signs on private property were not affected by the request.

On March 20, Moore sent an email to Morgan County’s political party chairmen requesting that the campaigns remove the signs.

In his email to Republican chairman Daniel Elliott, Libertarian Party chairman Danny Lundy and Democrat chairman Tom Wallace, Moore gave the campaigns three days to remove the signs, saying they were in violation of the town’s unified development ordinance (UDO), specifically the section that addresses general signage in the town, as there’s no language that specifically addresses election signs.

Williams said that he has noticed during the last few campaign cycles that candidates have placed the signs on public property without seeking permission from the town.

The town council president noted that when he ran for is current spot on the council, he asked permission to place campaign signs on public property and was denied.

Williams sent text messages — which he later posted on social media — to all four other members of the council notifying them of his directive to have political signs removed.

“I’m having Dave Moore remove the political signs, following our UDO procedures, from public property. They didn’t let me put signs up in my campaign. I’ve consulted the attorney and he agreed with my position,” Williams said in text messages to councilmembers Jessica Hester, Dustin Stanley and Tom Warthen, adding the specific citation in the town’s ordinance.

He sent a similar text message to Jeff Cook, but made it plural.

“They didn’t let us put signs up,” Williams said in his text to Cook, as both ran for the respective spots on the town council in 2019.

According to Williams, the town cited the UDO when Williams was denied placing his campaign signs on public rights of way.

Now that he’s council president, he wants the town’s UDO to be applied across the board, including campaign signs.

“I want it to be fair to all campaigns, and for all campaigns to get the same answer from the town,” Williams said.

He pointed to a part of the UDO that allows Moore to remove signs “with the consent of the President of the legislative body.”

The town’s UDO does state that the town’s legislative body — in this case, the town council — does have the authority to allow signs in right-of-ways, but the council has yet to weigh in on the issue publicly.

“Signs may not be installed at any of the following locations: In public right-of-ways, unless specifically authorized by the legislative body or their designee,” the UDO states.

One particular area in question is an island near the intersection of Indianapolis Road and Samuel Moore Parkway, as well as the Ind. 67/144 intersection.

On Friday, Elliott, Wallace and Lundy met together to discuss some ideas they would present to the town council.

“What we are going to present to the town council is to allow candidates to put signs at Samuel Moore Parkway and State Road 67, Samuel Moore Parkway and Indianapolis Road, the (Mooresville) Government Center and State Road 67 and State Road 144,” Elliott said Friday.

At the Ind. 67/144 intersection, the three chairmen will request that larger campaign signs be installed with the smaller yard signs being allowed at the other locations.

State code

State Rep. Peggy Mayfield (R-60), who’s running for reelection this year, pushed back against Williams on social media, pointing to Indiana Code 36-1-3-11, which notes that a town or county’s sign ordinance “is unenforceable” 60 days prior to an election and six days after that election.

For Mayfield, that section of Indiana Code “supersedes local ordinance,” and she said she’d be putting her signs back up after April 2.

Elliott noted that most campaigns begin placing signs within about 60 days of any election.

“I’m pretty confident that if we wanted to argue the point that we could put signs up there, that would be our right to do,” Elliott said.

But, Elliott is hoping to find a middle ground with the proposal that the party chairmen will present during the town council’s April 7 meeting.

Until the Indiana Election Commission chose to move the primary election from May 5 to June 2 on Wednesday, March 25, campaigns were well within the 60-day time frame.

Now that the new date has been set, that 60-day time frame will begin again by the end of this week.

“If they hadn’t moved the date to June, we’re in the middle of the political season for that,” Lundy said Friday. “To change the rules mid-stream, it just does not feel right.”

While some believe that campaigns can place signs in Mooresville rights of way because of the Indiana Code, Beth Copeland from Taft Stettinius and Hollister LLP disagrees. Copeland practices with the same law firm as Mooresville’s town attorney Chou-il Lee, and Lee requested that she offer her opinion.

In an email sent to town officials, Copeland said that IC 36-1-3-11 does not require the town to allow political signs on public property.

That is because, according to Copeland’s email, Mooresville’s UDO prohibits all signs on public rights of way.

“Mooresville cannot tell politicians how big their signs can be or how many signs he/she can place on a property during that (60 days before and six days after an election) time frame,” Copeland wrote in her email. “But, since Mooresville’s ordinance clearly prohibits all signs, except those specifically permitted in the UDO, on public property, IC 36-1-3-11© doesn’t apply.”

Lundy, though, believes that the Indiana Code allows candidates to put out campaign signs during the 60-day window around an election.

“That is supposed to trump local ordinance,” Lundy said. “And I believe there is precedent for that.”

Hamilton County case

In 2018, a judge in Hamilton County struck down a sign ordinance in that locale that attempted to ban signs along right-of-ways of roadways.

The judge believed that specific sign ordinance would have a negative effect on freedom of speech.

In his judgement from that 2018 case, Hamilton County Superior Court III Judge William Hughes wrote “The U.S. Supreme Court’s free speech jurisprudence establishes that government restrictions on speech like the ones at issue in this case must satisfy a very high bar to pass constitutional muster.”

Hughes based his ruling on a 2015 United States Supreme Court case which struck down a Gilbert, Arizona sign ordinance that targeted political signs.

Williams said he felt there are a number of differences between the Mooresville UDO and the ordinance from the Hamilton County case.

Based on what Williams read in newspaper coverage from the time, Hamilton County’s ordinance specifically targeted political signs, whereas Mooresville’s UDO limits all signs.

“Ours is signs in general,” Williams said on Friday.

During a trip through town on Sunday, however, the Reporter-Times noticed a number of signs still promoting local businesses in town rights of way, including at the intersection of Samuel Moore Parkway and Indianapolis Road.

The three party chairmen are expected to present their request during the next meeting of the town council.

That meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7, at the Mooresville Government Center, 4 E. Harrison St.

~ Staff Report | Published March 31, 2020 in The Mooresville Times