Early this morning, around the time Councilwoman Beth Mason announced her mayoral slate for the May election in Hoboken, large campaign signs for Mason went up around Hoboken on the city’s black light poles.
City Hall has discouraged people from posting flyers on utility poles, and the city has erected bulletin boards on Washington Street for flyers and ads.
City officials confirmed Friday that it violates a city ordinance to post advertisements on the city’s utility poles. Director of Environmental Services James Ronga said that they can be posted on the city’s public bulletin boards, as well as private property and storefronts (with the owner’s permission).
Ronga said that generally, at election time, the city’s Law Department sends a letter to all of the campaigns reminding them that posting the signs on utility poles violates town ordinances and that they should not put them there or they could be summonsed.
In addition, Ronga’s department is forced to go out and remove the signs once the matter is reported.
Often, campaigns will ignore the directives and put the signs up anyway overnight just before election day, sometimes unsigned. If you see someone putting one up, feel free to e-mail us a photo at editorial@hudsonreporter.com!
Mason was asked Friday morning if her campaign put those up with her knowledge.
“It’s free speech,” Mason said. “It’s a first amendment issue.”
She said that even if these are utility poles and not the public bulletin boards, she sees it as a free speech issue for her campaign to post her advertisements there.
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