Town of Collingwood officials logged 22 bylaw occurrences of campaign sign violations during the municipal election for mayor, deputy mayor, councillors and school board trustees this time around.
According to acting manager of bylaw services Adam Harrod, all complaints received by the town were dealt with by bylaw staff. Violations were dealt with through the non-refund of a $100 deposit fee that was required to be submitted to the town clerk by each candidate prior to erecting any signs.
“Anytime the town was required to remove an election sign, part of the deposit was retained by the Town of Collingwood,” Harrod told CollingwoodToday.ca. “After the third sign removal, the $100 deposit was forfeited.”
In total, the Town of Collingwood will be retaining $310 in sign deposits.
“Overall, most candidates complied with the rules set out in the town’s election sign bylaw. Most of the candidates removed their signs after being notified of the contravention by the town,” said Harrod.
For comparison, Harrod says that during the 2018 municipal election, 15 bylaw occurrences were investigated.
Under the town’s election sign bylaw, any signs deemed to be hazardous are removed immediately without notice. For all other election sign contraventions, candidates were given at least 12 hours to remove/relocate their sign. If the sign was not removed by the specified time, staff would remove the sign and retain a portion of the sign deposit.
For the first sign removed, $25 was taken from the deposit. For the second sign removed, an additional $35 was taken from the deposit. If a third sign was removed, the balance of the deposit was forfeited to the municipality.
While town officials did not name specific candidates, they did provide a candidate-type breakdown of offenders.
- One mayoral candidate had $25 removed from their deposit
- One deputy mayor candidate had $60 removed from their deposit
- Two councillor candidates had sign deposits completely forfeited
- One school board trustee candidate had $25 removed from their deposit
