Wenatchee Resident Wants Bryan Campbell's Campaign to Stop Putting Signs on His Property
The third time is not a charm, according to Scott Pearl, and he wants it to stop
Scott Pearl has three “Bryan Campbell for mayor” signs but he asked for none of them.
A few weeks ago, one appeared in his yard along a stretch of roadway in Wenatchee that sees a lot of daily traffic. He did not ask Campbell or anyone in his campaign for a sign, so Pearl was annoyed. He took it down, put it in his garage, and figured whoever put it there would get the message.
A week later Pearl got back from Seattle to find another sign had appeared.
This time Pearl thought perhaps one of his friends was pulling a prank. So he called around and asked. None of his buddies were responsible. So he talked to his neighbors, thinking maybe one of them wanted to put Campbell’s sign on their property and made a mistake. That was not the case.
With growing frustration, he took down the second sign and put it in his garage with the first.
Then, on Tuesday, Oct. 24 another sign popped up in the same spot.
“It’s happened three times. It’s more than a misunderstanding. It’s a repeat offense,” Pearl said.
At this point, enough was enough and he reached out to Campbell, who responded promptly. Pearl said Campbell was “respectful and polite in wanting to respond to what I was saying” but he felt he was evasive in answering who put the signs on his property and why his campaign didn’t ask permission.
“I wasn’t loving the underlying message that I was getting from him,” he said.
I also reached out to Campbell and asked if he and his campaign ask permission before placing signs and if he had anyone other than Pearl reach out to ask him to remove any of the signs they’d placed on folks’ property.
“I've had about 60 signs removed, so this is probably a case of mistaken location or a sign being replaced that was thought to be stolen,” Campbell wrote.
Pearl hasn’t been impressed with the way Campbell has conducted his campaign for mayor, citing the fact that the candidate has gone out of his way to imply support from organizations like the Wenatchee Valley Fire Department when in fact he has not been endorsed by the department of the local firefighter’s union.
He said in light of that type of behavior, he’s less inclined to give Campbell and his team the benefit of the doubt and chalk things up to an innocent mistake.
“Did I think it was probably a little more likely this knowingly went up without my permission – made it even shadier? Yeah, I would say so,” Pearl said.
It’s not as if Pearl is completely averse to having a candidate’s sign on his property. He let Wenatchee School Board director Martin Barron place one of his signs on his property after he asked politely.
“He himself knocked on my door and we chit-chatted for like five minutes before he even got around to asking permission for the sign,” he said.
While the rationale behind putting signs up is to gain votes, Campbell has clearly alienated at least one voter because of his reappearing signs placed without permission.
Time will tell if others have similar experiences and if the political strategy will be successful.
If you’ve had a candidate’s sign placed on your property without your permission, please reach out.