With Program in Place, Political Signs Move Eastward

“There is a stark difference in the view when coming into Loudoun from Fairfax,” acknowledged Tim Buchholz, chairman of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee.

Originally launched as a pilot program, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors decided this summer to make the program a permanent fixture in Loudoun. Several dozen volunteers take part by ridding Loudoun of any signs illegally posted along state-owned roadways.

Most of the offending signs volunteers remove are commercial in nature, such as an ad for a car wash or open house. But this fall, political signs have come into play. What is normally a sea of campaign signs dotting the county this time of year has shrunk to a mere drop, with many now taking root along Route 7 and 50 safely across the border in Fairfax, which does not have a similar program in place.

Keith Fairfax, who heads up the program for Loudoun, said his volunteers collected about 3,400 signs in September, with only a small amount being political, he said, since campaign season was still in its infancy then. He won’t have October’s figures until mid-November. He did say, though, that one volunteer removed about 60 signs, many political, from the Sterling Boulevard median in Sterling Park in early October.

“We are treating them the same as any other signs,” Fairfax said, adding he was expecting a large wave of political signs to pop up the weekend before Election Day. “If they are in the right-of-way, they will be removed.”

When the program was created, there was concern that some volunteers, empowered by having the county's backing, would recklessly start removing every political sign they saw, no matter if they were on public or private land. For the most part, though, those fears appear unfounded.

As of a week before Election Day, Fairfax said only one campaign had complained about the program, and that was about a volunteer who accidentally removed a sign from private property. He said after additional training, the mistake has not happen again.

As for the campaigners, David D’Onofrio, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Republican Committee, said he hadn't heard of any problems Republican candidates had had with the program.

The story is the same with the Democrats, Buchholz said.

“No sign problems for our candidates,” he said. “They are all aware of the new program.”

Ashburn resident Ed Brocke is a volunteer with the sign removal program. In Ashburn alone, he said, volunteers have raked in “hundreds and hundreds” of roadway signs in October. Of those that were political: “I couldn't tell you,” he said.

Brocke did say that because of the program he has little doubt that roadside advertisers -- political or commercial -- are well aware that Loudoun roadways are now off limits.

“Look at all those signs on the other side of Dranesville Road,” he said, referring to the Sterling-area road that divides the two counties at Route 7. “The program is working beautifully.”