Snubbed Candidates Face Deadline for Removing Campaign Signs

PHOENIX - You can't avoid them during election season -- those campaign signs crowding every intersection. But now that the primary is behind us, it's time for losing candidates to start pulling their signs -- and cities are making sure they clean up.

The winners get to leave their signs up, but the candidates who lost their races have a certain length of time to take theirs down. The deadline varies from city to city.

Tom Waldeck, Director of the non-profit organization Keep Phoenix Beautiful, says he can't wait.

"When I go past a street corner and see one person with eight signs it's overkill. And now with storms rolling in they're like projectiles."

In Phoenix and Chandler, candidates have 10 days after the election to remove their signs. If they don't they can be fined.

In Scottsdale, signs are only allowed to stay up for 4 months since they were posted. Each sign gets a sticker when it's put up -- and must be removed within 4 months of that date or after losing the election.

Scottsdale's code enforcement manager, Malcolm Hankins, says his team of inspectors aggressively goes after sign violators.

"One of the things we do at the end of the primary is call them up and talk to them about their timeline for removing signs. Haven't had a big issue when it comes to those that are supposed to be removed after the primary is over."

Waldeck says every candidate who comes up short in the election needs to clean up after their campaign.

"There's just too many of them too many left up. This weekend would be great to see them disappear. And give us a week or two between now and the general election."

Of course, there will be another round of campaign signs hitting the street corners before the general election.