Police looking into complaints of campaign sign vandalism, harrassment and threats

School board candidate and Measure E opponent Jose Granda says someone is systematically taking down his campaign signs, and some residents who put No on E signs in their yard are receiving threatening notes or harassing phone calls.

Granda told The Enterprise that this week, someone apparently took down all the No on E signs along Monarch Lane, Loyola Drive, Whittier Drive. as well as on the corner of Alhambra Dr. and East Covell Blvd. and along Pole Line Road. “In South Davis, it’s the same thing,” Granda said. In some cases, the No on E signs had been replaced by Yes on E signs, he added.

Granda also said that police are investigating a threatening note that was recently mailed to a resident who had a No on E sign in front of their home. The note indicated — in crude language — that the sign would be taken down and the home would be damaged if the No on E sign was not taken down voluntarily.

Granda also provided a recorded phone message left at his home by a landlord, telling Granda to come pick up a yard sign that had been put up by a tenant, or the yard sign would be recycled. Granda said that under a local city ordinance, “a landlord may not prohibit a tenant from posting political signs. A resident may post a sign in a window, on a balcony, on a door, from the yard, or outside a wall of the premises leased by a tenant in a multi-family dwelling.”

He added that some residents with No on E signs had received harassing or threatening calls as well.

Vandalism of campaign signs has been a recurrent complaint during several recent elections in Davis, but Granda said that these incidents involve a more systematic effort than the sometimes random vandalism that has been reported in the past. “This is not the Davis I have known for 32 years” as a resident, Granda said.