The elections are over and as always we have winners and losers. To those who won and will serve our community for the next four years I congratulate you on your victory and wish you well. To those who were defeated I want to thank you for your willingness to serve and hope that this will not discourage you from seeking public office in the future.
I have written letters in the past encouraging everyone to please pick up their political signs. Most candidates have been very diligent in seeing that their signs are taken down but there are still a number of signs scattered throughout the city and county. If you were a candidate I ask that you survey the areas that you put up your signs and see that they are removed because they are becoming an eyesore in our community.
Each time I ran for office, the night of the general election instead sitting home watching the returns, whether I won or lost I went out and picked up my signs. The day after the election there were none of my signs left standing. I stored them for future use in case I decided to run again. I know from experience how expensive these signs are and ask you to consider the possibility that you may want to run again in the future. Pick them up, store them and in the process take care of your responsibility and possibly save money in the future. If a candidate’s sign is on private property, then the owner of that property should remove them.
I realize that some of these signs are for candidates who ran for state office and do not live in Columbus but they had people who worked in these campaigns and it is their duty and responsibility to see that they are removed.
I want to encourage The Dispatch to follow up and if signs are not remove in the near future they start naming the names of the candidates in the paper who have not removed them.
Thanks to you in advance for taking your signs down.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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