Repeat after Me: "Tampering with Campaign Signs is a Crime"

Village trustee candidate Joan Hoigard’s husband, Kurt, was on his way home Sunday after dropping off a campaign sign with a friend who lives on Ashland when he passed the 7-Eleven at the corner of 47^th Street and South La Grange Road.

Amid the collection of a dozen or so signs for other candidates and races, there were two distinct holes where placards for Hoigard’s slate once stood.

“He went around the side, opened the gate, looked in Dumpster,” said Hoigard, who is running with Michael Horvath and Jeff Tucek. “Sure enough, there were the signs. And they were only our signs.”

Though campaign sign tampering may seem like harmless election tomfoolery, as Patch reminded you last week, it’s actually a crime—just like vandalizing a mailbox, stealing a lawn ornament or breaking an outdoor light.

Trustee Mark Langan, who is running with Bill Holder and David McCarty, said his slate hasn’t encountered too many problems with its signs this campaign season. Somewhere between 12 and 15 out of the 500 distributed have gone missing over the past few weeks, he said.

“It usually is you’ll find them down the block,” he said, attributing most of the tampering to kids fooling around. “It has not been a big issue in La Grange. I think we have pretty good residents and pretty solid behavior from people who live in this wonderful community.”

A few other residents told Hoigard that people have messed with their signs, she said. Her slate already handed out all the signs it has, she said, so they can’t afford for any of them to go missing. (After fishing the two missing signs out of the 7-Eleven Dumpster, Hoigard's husband put them back on the tree lawn.)

"We try to keep a positive, upbeat message, so it was disappointing to have this happen," she said.

La Grange police reviewed 7-Eleven security footage, but the angle of the camera didn’t capture the area of the tree lawn where the signs stood. 7-Eleven employees said that they didn’t see anything, either, during the timeframe when the signs disappeared.

Investigator Patrick Fulla said that the police department has looked into the case as much as they’re able to, barring any tips from the community. As of April 3, there were no other recent police reports for campaign sign issues.

If you do see anyone stealing or otherwise tampering with campaign signs, report the incident to the La Grange Police Department Tip Line at 708-579-0688.