Menlo Park: Campaign signs vanish once more Menlo Park: Campaign signs vanish once more (October 06, 2004)

You'd think Nancy Drew would have solved The Mystery of the Missing Campaign Signs by now. But in an election-year tradition, irked residents are claiming that candidate placards are being swiped off their lawns.

In Menlo Park, where four candidates are duking it out for two City Council seats, resident Milton Borg said signs he passed out for Lorie Sinnott and Michael Lambert were pilfered. He said about 20 turned up in a trash can near San Francisquito Creek.

Meanwhile, Gail Slocum, campaign manager for Kelly Fergusson, said several Fergusson signs had also been purloined, along with "every single" Kerry-Edwards lawn placard in the Willows neighborhood.

Sometimes sign filchers are residents with a bone to pick with the candidate, while sometimes they're just teenagers, said Ms. Slocum, a former City Council member. She added that stolen signs can be costly for local candidates running grassroots campaigns.

Despite the concerns, Sgt. Mike Amaral of the Menlo Park Police Department said: "We have not had a rash of City Council campaign sign thefts. We've had a few incidents, but we did not take police reports; we just documented them."

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