Illegal Signs

Rommel Crabtree is mad.He's had it with the signs lining the highways that direct potential buyers to new houses in Harford County.So much so that he's taken the law into his own hands.Saturday, Mr. Crabtree, 41, of Creswell spent seven hours tearing, hacking and peeling the temporary cardboard signs planted in the ground by house builders and real estate companies.By the end of the day, nary a sign stood along Route 24 or U.S. 1, four-lane highways that crisscross the rapidly developing southern half of Harford.

Want to make lots of money at home and be your own boss? Need a new day care center? Want to drop your waist size fast? Just look at the signs posted illegally along roadsides all over Howard County. But lately, you may have to look twice, because of those big, bright orange "Violation" notices pasted over the phone numbers. Robert C. Porter, the county's only sign inspector, gets the credit for that. He and community leaders say many more people hate the signs than benefit from them.

As Election Day nears, the piles of illegally placed political signs are growing at Howard County's three highway maintenance yards. "This [year] has been the worst it's ever been. I don't know why people spend so much money," said James M. Irvin, the county public works director. Virtually every candidate is a violator, from County Executive James N. Robey, a Democrat, and Steven H. Adler, his Republican opponent, to lightly funded school board candidate Barry Tevelow. Election signs are prohibited on public property of any kind, including road rights of way. Of course, Republicans tend to see only illegal Democratic signs, and vice versa, and candidates say they never place signs in road rights of way. Only over-exuberant volunteers do that.

IT TAKES plenty of chutzpah for some politicians to think they can win an election by breaking the law. Offenders include Oz Bengur, who is running for Congress, and City Councilwoman Lisa Stancil, who wants to become Baltimore's top prosecutor. Over the weekend, Mr. Bengur's campaign workers littered the vicinity of Towson Town Center with illegal lawn signs. Ms. Stancil's workers were busy, too. They plastered signs unlawfully on vacant houses and public property throughout the city.

About 30 Glen Burnie residents worked for hours Tuesday night tryingto come up with a blueprint for the future.The volunteers, who met at the Glen Burnie Improvement Association building, spent the evening brainstorming about how to fix Glen Burnie's problems and build on its strengths.One of the most frequently voiced complaints was the community's "image problem." A stereotyped image of Glen Burnie as "Chrome City,"dominated by automobile dealerships and repair shops, is perpetuatedby people who don't live in the communityand know little about it, residents said.

The late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about obscenity that he couldn't define it, but he knew it when it saw it. He could as easily have been discussing ugly business signs.Baltimore County has been in a mini-tempest this summer over the little real estate signs that pop up on public rights of way every weekend (even though the much greater problem in that county is the runaway signs that mar Pulaski Highway and other major commercial arteries). The City Council in aesthetically-aware Annapolis just banned neon signs in the Historic District.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Most of us recognize a rommel crabtree when we see one, even if the name escapes us. Almost every community has a rommel crabtree, and those that don't, need one. This is self-evident, although it's a fact that whenever a new one pops up, quite a few important people complain about it.In the generic sense, rommel crabtrees are like the dandelions that force themselves up through cracks in the paved sidewalks and then burst into bloom, making...

Editor: So the illegal road signs will be taken down and the sign advertiser will receive a nasty letter. Horrors! Who's kidding whom? The signs have been illegal for years. Those printing them and installing them know that. They also know that there will be no enforcement. The only thing that will stop this will be severe penalties. Your article mentions that there will be a volunteer program to remove the signs. That's great as far as it goes. May I suggest that the state and/or county (depending on whether the sign was on a state or county road)

Carroll Countians residents should give a cheer to State's Attorney Thomas E. Hickman for scuttling a harebrained change in zoning enforcement policy that two of the three county commissioners issued May 16. It was a curious directive signed only by Commissioner President Donald I. Dell but backed by Vice President Elmer C. Lippy for county inspectors to focus mainly on complaints, not on trying to find zoning ordinance violations. Ostensibly, the two commissioners wanted to stop what they felt was governmental nit-picking in enforcement matters such as junk vehicles, junkyards, structures lacking county permits and illegal signs.

County officials, admitting they can't enforce rules against thousands of illegal signs, are turning to videotape to get rid of the controversial signs along Benfield Road in Severna Park.The new program, announced Friday by County Executive Robert R. Neall, responds to nine months of controversy about the the Department of Planning and Zoning's inability to enforce county sign ordinances because it is woefully short of inspectors.Violations include temporary signs, or those that violate height,size and setback requirements.