Mayor Bud Lewis, who was re-elected after a last-minute push that included posting dozens of candidate signs, proposed last week that the city ban such signs from roadway medians, or vegetated strips located in middle of the city's major roadways.

Only Councilwoman Ann Kulchin, who's held her spot for seven terms and is up for election again this fall, supported that proposal at a council workshop session Wednesday.

However, there was slightly more support for another option - reducing the number of days the signs are allowed on city streets. Julie Nygaard, who was appointed to her council spot in 2007 and has vowed not to run for election when the term ends this year, indicated that she might be willing to go for that.

Councilmen Matt Hall and Mark Packard, who both recaptured their seats in the 2006 election, agreed that the sign clutter made Carlsbad look trashy. But, they said, they didn't want to make changes to the city's regulations. Hall, who is planning to run for mayor in two years, said it wasn't fair to newcomers facing off against longtime incumbents, while Packard said that the less government intervention in the issue the better.

Currently, candidates can start putting their signs up 45 days before an election. The proposal, to be debated at next month's council workshop, calls for dropping that to 30 days. After that workshop session, the council would need to vote on the proposal during a regular council meeting for it to go into effect.

Setting limits

Carlsbad, like most communities, has a series of regulations relating to campaign signs. In order to post their signs on public rights of way, political candidates pay a $55 permit fee and a refundable $200 deposit. If candidates clean up the signs quickly after the election, they get the $200 back.

There are limits on where candidates can place those signs, too, City Attorney Ronald Ball said Thursday. The signs can only go along major roadways in Carlsbad, including Palomar Airport Road, Carlsbad Village Drive and La Costa Avenue. If a candidate wants to post a sign on a tiny residential street, then it better be on private property or it's against the law.

Carlsbad also has limits on the size of the signs - they can't exceed 6 square feet, Ball said.

But the city can't tell people what color to make the signs or how big the words "vote for me" can be, or they end up in legal trouble for restricting free speech rights.

"Cities can deal with the time, place and manner - we can't deal with the content," Ball said.

In addition to that, cities also are better off not regulating the number of signs a candidate can have, or they can end up in endless police enforcement battles, he said.

A negative impression?

Some of the people who have indicated they want to run for City Council this fall said late last week that they could support the 30-day proposal; others weren't so sure.

"I wholeheartedly agree," said Keith Blackburn, a police sergeant who's making plans to run.

Blackburn said he will post signs in the election, but thinks that 30 days is plenty of time.

Journalist Thomas Arnold, who also is considering a council bid, said he thinks Carlsbad has a worse campaign problem than neighboring communities and perhaps this could improve the situation. He said he will only place signs in significant spots, vowing not to be a "clutterer."

"If I see a name over and over again, it leaves a negative impression," he said.

But Farrah Douglas, a planning commissioner who's also planning a council run, said she thinks the 30-day limit is too short. Candidates need to start getting signs up before people start receiving absentee voter ballots, and that may be before the 30-day clock starts ticking, she said.

In Carlsbad, attracting absentee voters' attention is critical because more than 40 percent of the city's voters use them, she noted.

Though Douglas helped organize the mayor's re-election campaign in its final weeks, she said she wasn't thrilled by the sheer volume of signs in 2006.

"You couldn't drive and see the street because of all the signs in the medians," she said.

Meanwhile, real estate agent and inventor Glenn Bernard, who has twice run for mayor and has campaigned to eliminate the signs, said he thinks the city should be more strict with political candidates and less restrictive on real estate signs.

"There's more legitimacy to the real estate open house signs," he said, noting that those signs aren't allowed on public rights of way.

That's true, the city attorney confirmed.