More than a week after Election Day had come and gone, there was something of a gap-toothed line of political signs along the road near the Amagansett Firehouse. Best we could tell, the placards supporting the local Democratic candidates had quickly been taken away, oddly, though, leaving behind the bare-metal wire stands.
Jerry Larsen’s “write in” signs were gone, too. What remained were a handful for Christopher Gallant and more than a dozen for assorted Republicans, including Nick LaLota, Bruce Blakeman, and Stephen Kiely. With no functioning Republican Party in East Hampton Town, we figured there was no core group of people willing to take them away.
Overall, this year’s sign crop was especially bad. Near the early voting site on Accabonac Road in East Hampton, the roadsides were jam-packed with them in a distracting gauntlet. His eyes drawn to the side by the visual mess, one driver we know missed seeing a man walking a dog as they stepped into the crosswalk near Windmill Village. Town officials have the right to remove signs they consider contributing to a hazard; along Accabonac, as far as we could tell, they were hands-off to a fault.
In East Hampton Village, by contrast, things were refreshingly different. Off-premises signs of any sort are banned without a permit. And, other than relatively small ones for builders, landscapers, and real estate for sale or rent — all on the premises — none are allowed. Frequently, residents innocently putting out notices for yard sales are surprised to discover them removed by an officer nearly as soon as they appear. (An amusing exception in the village code allows alarm company signs; both the current and most recent former mayor have run home-security outfits.)
On the other hand, other sorts of signs have been an unexplained blind spot for East Hampton Town officials for years. Among the most-baffling are those exceeding the six-square-foot maximum for real estate and construction signs. Code enforcement officers, who are out and about frequently, are supposed to know how to use a tape measure, right? Perhaps even stranger is that town law requires temporary signs, to which building permits are often fixed, to be set perpendicular to property lines. Again, thinking about basic geometry, one would assume inspectors were at least familiar with right angles.
Given how poorly the — admittedly confusing — sign ordinances in East Hampton Town are followed, let alone enforced, it is well past time that the town board follow the village’s longstanding lead and pull them altogether.