So, an anonymous person ACROSS town from where the signs were nabbed thinks it was 'just a prank'. Anaonymous, perhaps, because its one of the organizers of the land-grab?

Eric,

The anonymous parent's name is known to us. She lives a few blocks away, not "across town." She is not a member of the Farmlands Group.

In any case, her theory about high school pranksters has now been confirmed by MVPD. Police have two suspects -- high school seniors -- who have admitted to stealing the signs. We'll have the updated story online shortly.

Calling this a prank reveals your bias in favor of the land-grab.

Fair enough, Don, but the article said she lived by Springer School, which, I'll give you isnt across town, but neither is it 'a few blocks'

"Defeat these bastards, malcontent,agony, supressing our voice..." all this over a handful of signs that cost $12 each? And for this criminal activity, two otherwise likely decent high school students should become convicted felons and lose voting and other priviledges for the rest of their life? Good grief. Talk about making a mountain out of molehill. I am told by one of our council members that candidates for public office routinely order 10% or so more signs than they think they'll need, to account for those that get swiped. The Farmlands group didn't find such a good deal on signs - we paid about $35 each for ours - and when some of those were stolen last year, we certainly didn't pester MVPD with requests for 24-hour surveillance and police detective work.

oh great, a new verification code comes up after I hit submit, instead of a message saying that the message was posted? this bug needs fixing please.

Hi Robin,

Sorry about the multiple-posts problem. Some other people have had the same issue leaving comments in Town Square. I've asked our Web master what to do about it ... meanwhile, I took off the redundant posts and just left your original.

They're just signs. I mean...if any of the kids pulled the same thing on me, I'd be mad, sure, but I wouldn't press charges. That's a bit...well, for lack of a better word, dumb. Then again, stealing signs was also dumb, but it happens all the time. Most of these kids can't think five minutes in front of their faces (since they're probably too busy thinking about college).

Phoenix, clearly prosecution is over the top, but to write this off as 'dumb' and move on is equally inappropriate. These kids trespassed, stole property (no single sign costs anything of consequence, but all of them together certainly did) and infringed upon the free speech of a lot of people. Was that their intent? Probably not.


Were one of my kids involved, I think that I would require them to take out an ad in the Voice (on their nickel) apologizing to the people they stole from.