Sign theft costly for Lodi candidate

Nov. 3—The 2022 election is just six days away, and candidates for Lodi City Council have been busy placing their campaign signs throughout the city.

For first-time candidates, campaigning can be stressful as they learn the ins and outs of elections.

But for Rita Mashni, who is running for the council's District 3 seat against Cameron Bregman and incumbent Doug Kuehne, the last week has been frustrating.

That's because someone has been removing many of her campaign signs and either replacing them or outright discarding them.

Mashni said she first learned of the sign removals when a friend texted her last Friday.

"I had a sign placed in front of the IHOP on Kettleman Lane," she said. "They gave me permission to put it there, but a friend who works there texted me, telling me to come over because it's gone. We looked all around the property, in the trash, and it was nowhere to be found."

She decided to visit the other 34 sites she had placed the signs, and found most of them had faced similar fates, such as near Western Dental on Cherokee Lane and near the Costco entrance on Harney Lane.

At Lodi Avenue Liquors, 1000 W. Lodi Ave., another candidate's sign had been placed directly in front of hers.

"They were all in locations that are very visible to anyone driving or walking in the area," she said. "I asked the businesses if they saw who had taken them, but they all said they hadn't."

Mashni viewed security footage from one of the locations in question, but her sign was never in view. Other businesses told her it would be days before they could provide her with security footage, she said.

Rather than spend the last week before the election trying to track down the culprit, Mashni said she will most likely have to replace the signs that were taken.

But it won't be cheap. She said she spent more than $3,000 of her own money to purchase the signs, and will most likely have to spend that much again.

"I know other candidates raised money for their campaigns, but I didn't ask anyone for anything," Mashni said. "I didn't want to feel like I owed anybody anything, and I felt I didn't have to. I felt I could run this on my own."

Lodi City Clerk Olivia Nashed said there are no rules or regulations she is aware of that prohibit the tampering of a candidate's campaign signage, and added that unfortunately, this is something that occurs throughout the country.

Last week, Fox35 in Orlando reported that a mayoral candidate in Edgewater, Fla. was accused of stealing an opponent's campaign signs, and just a week prior, KTBS in Shreveport, La., reported a candidate for city council was caught stealing a campaign sign on video.

According to sanjosespotlight.com, stealing a sign is considered a petty theft, a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment and/or fines of as much as $1,000 in California.

"I feel like whoever is doing this lacks integrity," Mashni said. "Now I have to consider which signs to replace, and it's one week before the election, It just feels horrible that anyone would do this."