by Bailey White
Staff Writer
A year’s worth of campaigning doesn’t undo itself overnight. The election is over, but the mayoral candidates and their respective camps still have a lot of work to do.
When it comes to removing the myriad of election signs, there’s a deadline to be met.
“Signs must be removed no later than seven days after the election,” said Larry Donahue, of the City’s Building Inspection Division, the department that oversees rules regarding sign placement.
Each candidate is issued a set of guidelines, and “if there are still signs out after that date, we issue a notice of violation, and normally when we point them out, they pick them up very shortly,” said Donahue.
Donahue also noted that once the election is over, it is up to the candidates to remove illegally placed signs from the City’s right of ways.
“During the election, we [the City] hire a private contractor to pick up any illegally placed signs. But after the election, it’s up to the candidates to remove those,” he said.
Campaign workers for both the Glover and Peyton camps have already started the tedious task of picking up signs.
“It’s been a team effort all along to pick up any signs that may have been illegally placed,” said Harry Reagan, Nat Glover’s campaign spokesperson. “And now that the election is over, it’s still working that way.”
“Our organized effort goes back to our wonderful Jacksonville firefighters,” said Maggie Bulin, the campaign manager for John Peyton. “They started picking them up the day after the election.”
Bulin estimates Peyton’s camp put out 20,000 yard signs.
“Our staff is definitely contributing to the effort, too,” she said. “And I’m about to send out an e-mail encouraging supporters to take down signs that they see.”
The clean-up effort extends beyond signs. Campaign headquarters are facing the ends of their leases.
“We’re in the process of closing up our campaign office at Liberty and Monroe streets,” said Reagan.
“We have to be out of our headquarters on May 20,” said Bulin. “So with less than a week to vacate, we’re busy organizing files and returning furniture.”
Because there is still so much work to do, the Peyton campaign has retained its original staff.
“At this point all the staff is in place because we need everyone to help bring this campaign to conclusion,” said Bulin. “We have thousands of thank you notes to write and e-mails to answer and phone calls to return, so our job is not yet done. We won’t be done until every last person is thanked.”
While many are still contributing to the clean-up effort on Glover’s campaign, a formal ending to the campaign is unlikely.
“The campaign was almost entirely volunteer,” said Reagan, “so we didn’t have a payroll. People are still working to tie up loose ends, but a lot have returned to their jobs.”