Veteran won’t back down

Ted Poull laughed Monday as he worked to repair the wooden “Veterans for Biden” sign he has been displaying in his Town of Saukville yard.

He was adding onto the political sign, mounting another placard atop the first, this one declaring “I Won’t Back Down.”

“It’s kind of a challenge to me right not,” Poull said. “Rather than get mad, I just keep putting them up.”

The message is apt since vandals drove over his sign, breaking it, sometime between noon and 3 p.m. Saturday while he was working at the local Democratic party office.

“I came back home and it was broken and bent over,” Poull said.

Poull, a Vietnam War veteran, said this is probably the sixth yard sign he’s had that’s been destroyed by vandals in the past several weeks.

“It started out with just a little yard sign,” he said. “They tore that up.”

He replaced the sign — and the one after that, and the one after that — after vandals destroyed them.

But the newest sign was a wooden one, made by a friend and bedecked with a photo of Poull’s Army uniform, complete with the medal he earned.

“If I haven’t earned the right to put up a sign, who has?” he asked.

Poull can take some comfort, no matter how small, in the fact he’s not alone. The Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office has fielded about a dozen calls about political yard signs being vandalized, stolen or defaced over the last month or so, Lt. Justin Kaas said, adding they’ve had two or three during the past week.

And the number is likely higher, he added.

“A lot of people don’t complain about it,” he said, noting many will just replace the signs.

The signs are from both sides of the political spectrum, Kaas said.

“It happens every four years,” he noted.

And, he said, it’s a simple crime to commit and a tough one to solve.

“We try to do our best,” Kaas said, but he noted that it doesn’t take long to grab a sign and go.

Tom Hudson and Elizabeth O’Connell, who live on Grand Avenue in Port Washington, got so frustrated when their signs supporting Biden were damaged that they set up a surveillance camera.

They got images of a woman pulling one of their signs out but failing to completely knock it down and a man who finished the job.

It’s not the first time, O’Connell said.

“We’ve had many political signs destroyed through the years,” she said. “Someone once said that the most difficult duty of a citizen in a democracy is to listen to dissenting voices. We respect other political views and would never interfere with anyone’s right to peacefully express an opinion. There is no reason for others not to grant us the same privilege. 

“It is important especially now with public opinions deeply divided that we continue to respect one another and not resort to bullying and vandalism. It is far better to discuss the issues and work toward building a better world.”

Poull said he, too, has had numerous signs damaged through the years.

“They trampled the signs. They ripped them up. They stole them,” he said. “This season it’s been worse. For a quiet road, I’ve got a lot of traffic.”

Poull, who has reported the vandalism to the Sheriff’s Office, said that his neighbors don’t seem to have an issue with his signs.

“My neighbor is Republican. We talk about it all the time,’ he said. “We just disagree.”

Most municipalities have sign ordinances limiting the number and size of even political signs.

In the City of Port, for example, residents are  to place no more than one campaign sign per candidate, one sign per referendum question and one sign containing a political message on their property during a campaign. The signs are limited to 11 square feet, and they aren’t allowed in the right of way or on buildings or grounds owned or operated by a public agency.

They can’t have any electrical, mechanical or audio features, and they must be removed within five days of the election.

But Bob Harris, the city’s director of planning and development, said the rules aren’t strictly enforced.

“There’s just not enough manpower or time,” he said. Typically they are only enforced if the city receives a complaint.

“Honestly, we don’t get a lot of political sign complaints,” Harris said.

The signs typically are only up for a short time, Harris said, and during a hot political contest like the current race for president they seem to pop up like dandelions in a lawn.

“Tis the season,” Harris said.