Political signs vandalized in Mesquite

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A local group has filed a complaint with Mesquite Police about a group of political signs that have been vandalized, destroyed or stolen in the community over past few days.

Early on Tuesday morning, Sept. 15, Doug Ramaker, a member of the Mesquite 2 Moapa Democrats organization, went out into the city of Mesquite to assemble three large 4 ft x 8 ft political signs in support of the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket in the upcoming Presidential election.

Unfortunately, the signs didn’t last long. By early Thursday morning, all three  had been torn up and destroyed.

“They didn’t even stay up for 48 hours!” said Mesquite 2 Moapa Democrats spokesperson Elaine Hurd. “It looked like someone took a box-cutter to all three of them. Isn’t there something really wrong with that?”

Hurd said that this was not the first time that this problem has arisen this election cycle. Earlier in the season, Hurd herself had gone out and put up smaller yard signs for Biden/Harris at about a half dozen  spots through town. They were all placed on public property where such signs are permitted, she said.

But most of these were also either damaged or stolen. “Three of them were gone within 24 hours,” Hurd said. “The others disappeared sometime after that.”

The group had received an allotment of the larger signs from the Nevada Democratic Party. This was the first time in many years that the State party had sent signs for the rural areas of Clark County, Hurd said.

To keep them in place, the large signs are wired down to three pieces of steel rebar driven into the ground at each location.

“They are not cheap signs, not at all; and they are not easy to install,” Hurd said. “We had expected them to have more staying power than the smaller yard signs. But I guess not.”

By Thursday afternoon, Ramaker and his wife Sandra, who serves on the Mesquite City Council, had already gone out and replaced the signs, clearing the old damaged signs away.

In an interview Thursday, Sandra Ramaker acknowledged that the majority of the people of Mesquite, regardless of political leanings, would never countenance such behavior.

“In fact, while we were out replacing the signs we had a Trump supporter stop and offer to help us,” Sandra said. “He said that he was disgusted to see that someone would do that. So we know that this doesn’t reflect the community as a whole.”

Even so, Sandra said that she was the one who had filed the complaint with local police.
“You know, people don’t have to like the candidates that are on the signs,” she said. “But destroying property is not okay, no matter who you are voting for. It isn’t right.”

Sergeant Wyatt Oliver of Mesquite Police Department acknowledged that the complaint had been filed but was unable to comment on any next steps in the investigation.

Oliver did say that damaging or removing campaign signs is, at best, a misdemeanor offense.

“It is the same as destruction or vandalism of property,” Oliver said. “It would be treated exactly the same.”