Political signs multiply in Crook County

Published 12:00 am Thursday, March 31, 2016

PRINEVILLE — With more candidates running in this year’s primary election than usual, a burst of political sign activity around the county is to be expected.

But signs that are visible 24/7, day and night?

“I worked with the sign store to use reflective material on my name, so it looks like it’s glowing in the dark — it’s pretty cool,” said Seth Crawford, who’s running for Crook County judge and has spent more than $4,300 on campaign advertising — more than any other candidate.

“At night, mine’s the only sign you’ll see anywhere on the landscape. It’s perfect — you’re driving down the road at night and you see a glowing ‘Seth Crawford’ in the distance. I get a lot of compliments on that one.”

The compliments may begin to slow, however, now that the 10 candidates running for the county commissioner and judge positions in the May 17 primary have spent more than $20,000 combined on advertising in Crook County so far this election cycle, according to the Oregon secretary of state’s financial filings and interviews with the candidates. Some in the county say the kind of signs that amount of money buys is becoming a little much.

“There are a lot of signs out there,” Prineville resident Brea Cobbs said. “A lot. I see nothing but political signs from here to Redmond — it gets tiring. And there’s more than usual, this is the most signs I’ve seen by far.”

“I don’t know anything about the candidates — there aren’t any public meetings with them and no news to speak of — just ugly signs that mean nothing,” said Crook County resident Carole Mathis. “Personally, I think the signs are a distraction and just ugly.”

Despite the frustration, which has found an informal outlet in bars and restaurants as well as in heated comment threads of Crook County-focused Facebook groups, the number of signs around the county makes sense considering more candidates have filed to run this year than Crook County Clerk Cheryl Seely can remember.

“We haven’t had this many file in quite a while,” Seely said, adding that her office hasn’t received any complaints about the signs. “You’ll see three or four once in awhile, but seven for one commissioner seat hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“Seven people running for a commissioner’s seat — that’s not normal,” said Jodie Fleck, who’s running for the position herself but said she’s not putting her political signs out until April 1 — Friday.

According to county records, 2008 was the last time more than three candidates for commissioner were on the ballot.

In that year, four people filed to run in the Republican primary and three filed to run in the Democratic primary, which were treated as separate elections. This is the first year that the election has been nonpartisan after voters decided to remove party affiliations from the Crook County Court in 2015.

The candidates seem to have differing views on the advertisements.

On one end of the spectrum there’s Crawford, an outspoken enthusiast for loud — and sometimes unusual — political signs. In 2008, the first time Crawford ran for a commissioner seat, he advertised his campaign by positioning a 14-foot-tall cardboard cutout of himself at different places around town.

“It was awesome,” Crawford said.

He lost that race and has since ditched the cutout — “I turned it into a playground for my goats,” he said — but Crawford didn’t abandon his advertising tactics altogether.

In early February, according to the state financial filings, Crawford spent $3,500 on one 12-by-24-foot billboard located on state Highway 126 — more than some commissioner candidates have spent on their entire campaigns. He’s also accumulated signs from previous elections and added the old signs to his arsenal, he said.

“I have 25 or 30 really big ones, and then I’m not sure how many small signs I have,” Crawford said, clarifying that the “really big ones” (excluding his billboard) are limited to a maximum 32-square-foot surface area by county regulations. “One hundred small ones, maybe. To me, it’s exciting. There are so many more candidates this year, so it’s great to see people going through the political process with the signs.”

Ken Fahlgren, who’s opposing Crawford and Craig Brookhart in the judge race, isn’t as excited as Crawford about the signs. He said he sees them as a necessary part of campaigning and estimates he’s spent more than $3,500 on his signs, which include 20 8-by-4-foot signs and fewer than 100 yard signs.

“I felt like I needed to at least have a reaction by competing (with Crawford) in some way,” Fahlgren said. “It’s one of those touchy situations. If you don’t catch folks’ attention they tend to think that you don’t care or that don’t want to run for the position.”

Brookhart, who isn’t so amused by the number of political signage either, plans to start putting up “less than 20” big ones after Friday.

“My feeling on signs is that there’s an awful lot of them,” he said. “We’ve kind of gotten really carried away on signage, and I personally don’t like to litter the landscape with signs.”

Shelby Duncan, the 20-year-old college student who’s running for the commissioner seat. Duncan estimates that he’s spent about $500 on political yard signs, and said he decided not to buy any bigger signs. Still, he said he likes the idea behind them.

“People make comments that there are too many, but I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “It shows who’s running and that people are excited.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829,

awest@bendbulletin.com

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. An earlier version of the story incorrectly referenced 2012 numbers when discussing how much money Brookhart has spent on advertising this campaign season. He has spent no money, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. The Bulletin regrets the error.