Residents find election signs destroyed on their lawns
Residents of a westside neighbourhood awoke Thursday morning to see election signs of their preferred candidate destroyed. The older tree-lined shaded area just east of Nicholas Sheran Park has numerous signs on private property showing support for Shannon Phillips.
Sometime before 7:30 a.m. area residents saw numerous signs had been cut in half. Damaged signs stretched all the way down one block and could be seen on others. Some signs were sliced cleanly in half from top to bottom’ at least one other was cut or ripped from the wooden stakes it was attached to.
Several residents - who didn’t want to be identified for fear of repercussions tried to tape up the damaged signs on their properties.
One told The Herald “there’s no need for this. It’s a lot of stupidity.”
Another who has lived on the street since 1980, said it’s the first time he’s seen signs damaged.
Mary Combs, who has lived on the block for a year, said she called police while another neighbour called Phillips’ constituency office about the damage.
“The UCP scares me,” said Combs who last year was involved in a tailgating incident on Scenic Drive with a truck carrying a Keep Alberta Strong banner which prompted her to pull into the police station parking lot for her safety.
“I hope someone has a doorbell camera somewhere” to catch an image of the perpetrators, said Combs who says she loves the area, which she called an open-minded neighbourhood.
“We’re 100 per cent NDP,” Combs said. The small group of residents standing on the street talking about the incident said the signs were intact on Wednesday night so the damage had to have occurred sometime before dawn.
Lethbridge West Liberal candidate Pat Chizek - who is running in her second election here - recently told The Herald she’d seen signs destroyed.
“I could never could figure out why a sign is so threatening. I’m going to say probably two-thirds of the signs I put up last election did not come back,” Chizek said.
“I have no idea” why, she said.