Nearly every political sign in Juneau is illegal \u2014 and that\u2019s OK.<\/p>\n
According to state law, \u201coutdoor advertising may not be erected or maintained within 660 feet of the nearest edge of the right of way.\u201d<\/p>\n
That 660-foot buffer applies to all state roads, including Glacier Highway, Egan Drive, Thane Road and Douglas Highway.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an exemption for real estate signs, but there\u2019s no exception for political signs \u2014 even on private property.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Woodrow is a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in Juneau. <\/p>\n
\u201cMost people bring this up during political sign season,\u201d he said, and he\u2019s heard plenty about it this year.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Empire ran a story about the defacement of signs supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. After the story published online, Juneau resident Tom Rutecki urged readers to report unlawful signs by calling DOT.<\/p>\n
The transportation agency, not state troopers or law enforcement, has the authority to enforce the sign law. It has the authority, Woodrow said, but not the resources. DOT doesn\u2019t have an enforcement division, which means that if a sign needs to be taken down, someone has to be pulled away from patching potholes or trimming brush.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aren\u2019t an enforcement agency. We don\u2019t get extra funding to do enforcement on this,\u201d Woodrow said. \u201cIf you were an employee, this is \u2018other duties as assigned.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Alaska has long prohibited billboards as harmful to \u201cAlaska\u2019s uniqueness and scenic beauty,\u201d according to a 1998 ballot measure approved by 72.38 percent of voters.<\/p>\n
According to DOT\u2019s own history of the billboard ban, the Alaska Territorial Legislature first addressed the topic in 1949 but specifically exempted political advertising from the ban.<\/p>\n
Later prohibitions under statehood did not exempt political signs, and the modern law continues that tradition.<\/p>\n
Enforcement is the issue, Woodrow said. DOT typically only removes signs if they pose safety hazards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone tapes a sign to a stop sign, that\u2019s going to be ripped down immediately,\u201d Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
The same is true for signs attached to guardrails, highway signs or the like. Woodrow said the chief offenders are signs placed in Juneau\u2019s roundabouts.<\/p>\n
While DOT is allowed to remove a troublesome sign immediately if it\u2019s on residential property, the situation is different if the sign is on commercial property. In that case, DOT has to give 30 days\u2019 written notice before removing a sign.<\/p>\n
Given that most political signs go up less than 30 days before an election, there\u2019s not much DOT can do with a sign on commercial property, Woodrow said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the point of issuing a 30-day written notice? Even then, they could take it down, put it back up and start the cycle again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Despite those limitations, Woodrow said DOT has received some requests for takedowns, and it has indeed removed some signs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been out there; we have removed a few,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked for figures \u2014 even ballpark ones \u2014 Woodrow said fewer than 5 percent of requests have resulted in a takedown.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at 523-2258 or james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly every political sign in Juneau is illegal \u2014 and that\u2019s OK. According to state law, \u201coutdoor advertising may not be erected or maintained within 660 feet of the nearest edge of the right of way.\u201d That 660-foot buffer applies to all state roads, including Glacier Highway, Egan Drive, Thane Road and Douglas Highway. There\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":33578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33577"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}