Nearly $50,000 in Fines Don’t Deter Popsicle Signs

By STEPHANIE TIPPLE

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va .– Did you know that each time you pass by a road sign on the median in Prince William County – you’re paying for it?

In an effort to keep roads safe and clutter free in the county, the Virginia Department of Transportation has a rule of no signs in the “right of way” but this doesn’t always stop area residents, businesses and organizations from posting the signs.

These “popsicle signs” (no, not the ice cream variety) have become more prevalent than ever after the recent Presidential election and are considered by many to be a nuisance. They’re also used by housing developments, Realtors, and by businesses advertising a special product or service. At the November 20 Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting, residents spoke out.

“Unfortunately, during the last few years, we’ve been subjected to a proliferation of unsightly signs of all kinds on our roads, our intersections and our shopping centers. These signs are robbing us of our right to enjoy our community. This situation is out of control,” said Allan Beverstock, of Manassas.

In order to remove these signs, Prince William’s Neighborhood Services office, sends out a team of inspectors and volunteers to help ensure what signs are there are allowed to be there.

And while this team works hard to ensure the cleanliness of the roadways in the county, this comes at a significant cost of time and resources for. In this fiscal year alone, the inspectors and volunteers have collected 21, 638 signs, with 453 collected for court hearings.

“From 10/22 to 11/24, we decided to say well let’s see what that looks like – and we collected 960 signs between that period; 273 were political signs and 443 were builder’s signs and 244 were non-builder signs,” said Michelle Morris, Management and Fiscal Analyst for Neighborhood Services.

Election signs in particular have a window of time where they are allowed to be displayed, but are expected to be cleared away by the respective campaigns within 5 days after the elections.

For each offense, the fine is currently $100 per sign, and in this fiscal year, $48, 629 was collected in fines for these illegal roadway signs. Some people feel that this large volume of illegal signage would be deterred by higher fines for repeat offenders, especially considering the amount collected in fines is significantly smaller than the $100,000 plus dollars a year it costs to maintain the sign tagging and fine program.

“Some of the citizens have asked us to do higher fines for repeat offenders, because some people don’t know – but some people do know. We’ve tried to get it for the past few years so that the amount is higher for repeat offenders but that hasn’t passed down in Richmond,” Morris said.

Each time an inspector or a volunteer crew goes out, they’re required to follow a specific process for tagging and removing these roadways signs.

“You have to take a picture, you have to tag it, we have to find the registered agent for it, we have to send the summons out to the courthouse, which has to be served by a sheriff and then a court date has to be set,” Morris said.

All of this effort also leads to pollution in the environment as, “All the signs ultimately end up at the landfill.”

Morris commented that in many cases the posting of the signs illegally is unintentional, although each sign has to be properly tagged and fined – regardless of the intent. The Neighborhood Services sign tagging program urges residents to visit their website and be aware of the rules for posting signage in the county.