Our site fighting against street spam (AKA illegal campaign signs),
http://www.LitterOnAStick.com made the local news today!
http://www.whnt.com
Look for our little green offramp sign on the left. They are going to run a story about us on their 10PM news tonight. I hope they put the video for the segment online - I'll post it if they do.
Background information below the fold and in previous diaries of mine...
Did you ever have one of those days where you just finally had enough? For me, it was March 28th, 2006. I was on I-65, and within 3 exits I counted over 40 political signs, most of them from two candidates running for Alabama Supreme court. Here we have people running for our highest state court, to rule on our laws, and they are breaking those laws. My anger just boiled over, and I just pulled my car over and started ripping the signs out of the ground. Mistakenly thinking I might be breaking the law myself by removing them, I began researching the law, and much to my satisfaction I found that they are considered litter by the state, and that placing the signs is a prosecutable offense. I also contacted a lawyer to find out what could be done to me for removing them, and was advised that the worst case scenario was a false arrest for larceny, but that even that would be ridiculously hard if not impossible to prove in court, especially if one were willing to return the signs to the candidates. So starting on the night of March 29th, I began removing illegally placed signs from the state right of way. I have hundreds now.
On April 1st, I realized that we needed a way to help prevent the signs from being placed on the roadways, because it was quickly becoming obvious that we could pick up signs until we were blue in the face, and they would just keep illegally placing them, because they had no fear of getting caught. I decided to put my money where my convictions are on this, and I offered a $50 reward for the first person who took a picture of a campaign worker caught in the act of illegally placing a sign, along with their tag number. We are seeing this have a dual effect.
1). It is discouraging new placements out of fear of consequences and bad press and
2). Giving people a way to participate without removing signs themselves.
This entire idea was hatched on one of my favorite forums (other than KOS, of course), http://www.TalkWeather.com . This is a great group of folks who gather in a nonpartisan way to talk about weather, and to have a central place of communication during a severe weather event. They have a General/OffTopic Forum where we discuss all kinds of issues, from partisan politics to American Idol. I am known as the loudmouthed liberal on the forum, but I was surprised and pleased when I got such an overwhelming amount of support for this from almost everyone, regardless of political persuasion. Most of us realized that both parties are guilty of this, and will be again if we can not agree in a nonpartisan way. I've picked these signs up out of beautiful streams around here, and it looks like folks around here have just finally had enough.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been assembling a team of sign pullers, photographers, web designers, and people who are willing to help us spread the word about our cause in the media.
Want to help? Check us out at
http://www.LitterOnAStick.com/
or at our forum
http://www.LitterOnAStick.com/...