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Illegal sign patrol on a mission to clean up Hillsborough streets

 
Citizen volunteers, Reed and Bill Staley take down illegal roadside signs for county code enforcement.  CHARLIE KAIJO   |   Times
Citizen volunteers, Reed and Bill Staley take down illegal roadside signs for county code enforcement. CHARLIE KAIJO | Times
Published June 25, 2017

BRANDON --Jim Reed, rifling through the back of his Nissan Pathfinder, picks out a sign.

"You see these all over the place. 'Free Groceries.' You and I know there ain't nothing free.''

Here's another: " 'Buy a New Home, $1,000 Down.' All scam stuff, basically that's what it is. I'd like to see anybody buy a new house anymore for a thousand dollars down.''

Reed, 74, hates illegal roadside signs, from the crude handwritten ones stuck on telephone poles to the Styrofoam-on-metal-frames stuck in the ground. So does his neighbor, Bill Staley, 75.

Six years ago, they decided to do something about it, and they're still doing it. At dawn one morning each weekend, the men don their roadside reflector vests and Code Enforcement Volunteer caps and go out to clean up the streets. Since they started in 2011, they report, they have picked up more than 52,000 signs.

They cruise around in east Hillsborough County, grabbing advertisements placed without permit on the public right-of-way, pitching everything from credit repair to lawn care to career opportunities. One of the more unusual, Staley said, sought a female roommate. He wonders who would respond to such a request from the roadside.

"These things are ugly. They just pollute our communities,'' said Staley, a retired Army National Guard colonel and food business executive. "It's roadside spam, is what I call it.''

At one time, a dozen or so volunteers around the county made it their mission to clear the roadsides of snipe signs, presumably so-named because they seem to pop up suddenly at night, as if installed by a snipe, the imaginary creature that practical jokers send the gullible in search of at dark. Now, Reed and Staley are the only two still doing it, according to county code enforcement director Ron Spiller.

"We certainly applaud their efforts, because it's a big problem,'' he said. "They really contribute.''

Spiller has about 20 code officers in the field. Among the myriad violations they address, they collected some 42,000 snipe signs from October to May, and are on track to pick up 70,000 by this coming October.

The signs create multiple problems. Paper clutters storm drains, adding to flooding. And grass grows over a metal frame left in the ground. A road worker's mower blade can turn it into shrapnel.

Spiller said his agency is exploring the possibility in the future of adding a force of volunteers to do more than gather snipe signs. They would also perform tasks like follow-up visits to ensure that violations the regular officers cited are corrected. Currently, he said, he doesn't have the staff to supervise a large group of snipe sign volunteers.

Anyone can pick up illegal signs in the right-of-way, Spiller said. "Legally, it's considered litter.''

Reed and Staley carry literature that explains to anyone who asks why the signs are prohibited. They know not to get into a confrontation with an upset sign owner. They would leave the sign and walk away. If they had real trouble — they haven't so far — they would call the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. The regular deputies patrolling the area know who they are and what they're doing, they point out. Most passersby, they say, give them a thumbs up.

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"I think it's great,'' said Robin Beyer, a morning walker who lives nearby. She often runs into the sign snatchers on their mission.

The other day, she told them, she saw a man sticking a sign in the median strip along State Road 60, and she warned him: "It's going to get picked up!'' It didn't stop him.

''We get a kick out of Saturday mornings,'' said Reed, a retired system engineer for Verizon who works part time as a government agricultural inspector.

"Our wives think we're absolutely crazy.''

That's true, Staley said, though he reminded his wife that she once complained about those "nasty'' roadside signs, telling her, "We're the guys that take care of those nasty signs and remove them.''

Some signs for special events are exempt, and the code enforcement department lets them know which ones. They include the Parade of Homes tour and a Ruskin seafood festival.

Other signs are given a little leeway, at least by the volunteers. They'll pick up hand-written garage sale signs and leave the store-bought signs for a while, figuring that owners of the crude signs won't return to pick them up, while people who paid for their signs will.

And lost pet signs tug at Reed and Staley's neatnik hearts. They leave them up for weeks.

"We want people to have a chance to find their kitty-cats and doggies,'' Reed said.

Contact Philip Morgan at pmorgan@tampabay.com.