Election season is in full swing, with campaign signs posted all over town. One campaign says that they’ve had their signs taken and vandalized. It’s also not the first time they’ve had this issue.
Steve Zabawa founded Safe MT and has overseen putting up campaign signs. Their message is against allowing marijuana dispensaries in city limits.
Recently he’s experienced vandalism and theft of the campaign signs - some defaced, some completely missing. And he says it’s not the first time he’s had to deal with this.
Based in Billings, he’s seen it in both cities. He also says he’s had another stolen within the last day.
“It’s been brutal actually. Here in the city of Billings, we had a couple different votes and the first time I put my signs up I’d have about one out of three of the signs taken down or destroyed. In this last one, it was larger signs then what we put up in Great Falls, they were 4x8’s. I would get about 20 or 30 destroyed.
“We put a lot of time and effort into getting the signs made, getting the messaging correct, get it up in a timely manner, and all of a sudden your plans go awry because is actually stealing your signs or vandalizing them and they’re doing criminal elements and that’s very unusual in the political scene.”
The Great Falls Police department says they investigate the reports like any other theft complaint. They added that they don’t have data on how common the theft of campaign signs is, but want to remind people that you can be charged with theft and/ or trespassing.
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