•The Red Phone sounds off Saturday in The Times.
•The Red Phone sounds off Saturday in The Times.
We invite you to call us 24/7 to ask questions, report a complaint, give us a tip, offer an amusing tale of the short variety or just want people to know about something to do with Morgan Hill and the surrounding territory. We’ll check it out and have the answer in an upcoming column.
Leave us a message on the Red Phone. We won’t print your name or share it with others. We do need your name and phone number for verification purposes.
Campaign Signs:
Red Phone, can you please tell whether all those campaign signs on light poles, fences and in front yards are legal? And when do they have to come down after the election? What are the penalties if the rules aren’t followed?
This question comes up every time we have an election. Most candidates and their supporters collect the signs soon after the polls close but there are always sad, bedraggled signs, usually sporting the name of a losing candidate, that still blight the landscape at Christmas and too often until after Easter.
City Clerk Irma Torrez is the clearinghouse of election information for candidates, reporters and the public besides being an all around nice lady. She said state and local laws require all temporary political signs to be removed within seven days after an election. They must not be placed within any public street or right of way or within 660 feet of or visible from the freeway right of way.
Campaign signs must not be placed in center medians or parkway planting strips. They may not be posted on city street signs, light poles, utility poles or trees. Or on city barricades. And they may not obstruct the vision of motorists or pedestrians. Torrez knows who is responsible for each candidate’s signs and whom to call if the rules are not followed. If the city must remove the signs, the bill will be sent to the responsible party. Torrez says she hopes candidates will follow the rules to avoid possible embarrassment and cost.
Shhh that phone:
Looks like the old days when people went to the library to study are over. People are complaining that cell phones have taken over, a caller complained.
Morgan Hill Library has a big sign on the doors, “Please turn off your cell phone.” Some people do; some don’t, said City Librarian Nancy Howe.
“Our guiding principle is the same as with any kind of disruptive behavior,” Howe said. “If it starts to disturb others, we ask patrons to take the call outside.”
It’s hard to enforce courtesy, she said, but they do intervene.
So, we suppose the library is like every other public place. Most people are polite; others are less well brought up and don’t contribute much to a higher social standard. If the librarian can’t boot the offender out, people sometimes take matters in their own hands.
Glaring at an offender doesn’t usually work but you might try obviously listening to their conversation, taking part even. Give them the benefit of your experience. Amuse yourself by thinking what Miss Manners would say to them if she found herself in your position. Or you can move away – or do what we do when it gets truly bad – use earplugs. Look on the bright side. If Congress gives permission to list all our cell phone numbers, we’ll start getting calls from spammers – which will use up our minutes and cost us. At that point, many people would give up their phones in self-defense.
