Signs of the season

Political yards signs are popping up around Chico like fall flowers these days—the most obvious signal that a heated election season is upon us. Less obvious but just as indicative of that heat are reports that those very same signs are disappearing from people’s front yards.

City Councilman Dan Herbert, who’s running for re-election to a third term, reported he’d lost “a lot” of signs.

Herbert said on Monday (Sept. 25) that some 75 volunteer canvassers had been out for the first time that weekend distributing signs for him and the other members of his slate, Mark Sorensen and Michael Dailey, “and [signs are] already trashed—stolen or knocked down.”

The sign vandalism is crossing political lines. A volunteer in Mary Flynn’s campaign for City Council reports a number of her and 3rd District supervisor candidate (and current Councilwoman) Maureen Kirk’s signs posted along Vallombrosa Avenue disappeared over the weekend, as well as signs on East Sacramento and East Fifth avenues.

Flynn, Scott Gruendl and Tom Nickell constitute the more-liberal group of council candidates, though they are not running as a slate. And Kirk is more liberal than her opponent, Steve Bertagna, also a member of the City Council.

Both Kirk and Herbert lamented the sign theft and vandalism. “I certainly don’t want anybody to take any of the signs,” Kirk said.

“It really stinks—for both sides,” Herbert said. “Regardless of who you want to win, this is wrong.”

Campaign notes: You might have noticed that almost everywhere you see a Herbert sign, you also see signs for Sorensen and Dailey. That’s one of the advantages of running as a slate: Whenever a house-to-house canvasser finds someone who supports the slate, he or she can leave signs for all three candidates. That’s a real time- and energy-saver. There will be other cost-savers coming up: Look for joint mailings of brochures touting the slate, which saves on both printing and mailing costs.

Here’s an endorsement update: As mentioned in earlier reports, the Herbert slate (for lack of a better name for it) has gotten the backing of the Chamber of Commerce and the business-based Hooker Oak Alliance PAC. The Sierra Club, the Esplanade League (a group of liberal professionals) and Chico Conservation Voters (an environmentalist group) have endorsed the de facto slate of Flynn, Nickell and Gruendl.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Chico Police Officers Association decided not to endorse Nickell, a CHP officer, going instead with the slate-cracking trio of Gruendl, Herbert and Sorensen. The Chico firefighters union endorsed Gruendl, Nickell and Flynn.

Meanwhile, in the race for the Chico School Board, the Chico Unified Teachers Association has endorsed one of the two incumbents running for re-election, Rick Rees, but not the other, Anthony Watts. CUTA went instead with first-time candidates Andrea Lerner Thompson and Kathy Kaiser, both professors at Chico State University.