Vernon to allow candidate election signs on public property

Mar 30, 2022 | 5:00 AM

Vernonites will be seeing more candidate signs on public properties at the next municipal election this fall.

Councillor Scott Anderson issued a notice of motion during the regular council meeting Monday, March 28, calling for the bylaw banning candidate campaign signs on public properties be dismissed.

“We’ve had this [bylaw] on the books for a long time in response to over-signage one year that made some people angry,” said Anderson during the council meeting.

“The first year (2015), it was ignored by all candidates, essentially, and the second year (2018) was set aside by council. There’s no point in having a bylaw if we’re not going to [enforce] it.”

Councillor Akbal Mund responded to Anderson’s point, saying signs should go on private properties and that “there’s no need to have 5,000 signs polluting the entire city.”

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Councillor Brian Quiring added that most candidates break the existing bylaw already, resulting in a cycle of bylaw taking down the campaign signs, calling the candidates to come pick them up from the works yard and put them back up, just to have bylaw take them down again.

Quiring also stated that some people put up their signs believing they are following the rules, only to have their signs taken down.

“I think it’s ridiculous that the poor people from bylaw have to go and pick them up, so I think we’re saving everybody time and energy by abandoning [the bylaw],” said Quiring.

He also proposed that the motion be amended to allow a window of time for the signs to be allowed on public property, meaning they won’t be up for the duration of the entire campaign period. However, that idea was dismissed by city staff as the matter of the campaign period is not under the purview of the city.

“Elections B.C. is a provincial statute, so we can’t shorten something they’ve already allowed in terms of an election campaign period,” said Keri-Ann Austin, Corporate Officer for the City of Vernon.

“We can control where on city property, whether or not we allow that, but the campaign period stands.”

Council voted on the motion to retract the election sign placement bylaw, which passed with a vote of four to three. Councillors Akbal Mund, Kari Gares and Teresa Durning were the opposing votes.

The next municipal election is scheduled for October 15, 2022.

by Liam Verster

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