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Pot Party Candidate Signs Get Him In Hot Water
Pubdate: Thu, 10 Oct 2002
Source: Aldergrove Star (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 Central Fraser Valley Star Publishing Ltd.
Contact: http://www.aldergrovestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/989
Author: Russ Akins, Metro Valley News
POT PARTY CANDIDATE SIGNS GET HIM IN HOT WATER
Tim Felger's Marijuana Party has started its civic campaign early - much to
the dismay of parents at an Abbotsford elementary school.
Leslie Bowling has two children attending Abbotsford elementary. Monday
morning, she was shocked to see one of Tim Felger's campaign signs
promoting the Marijuana Party posted on the school's fence. School District
34 policy forbids election signs posted on school property.
"We're fighting for safe schools, for drug free schools," Bowling said.
"There have been drug busts in the neighbourhood, grow-ops."
The sign was removed and given to the principal.
Bradner resident, Felger, who will run against George Ferguson as mayor,
told the Abbotsford News: "I don't give a s--t about the bylaw. I have a
Charter of Rights - go ahead and arrest me."
This is the second time there have been problems with his signs put up too
early. He said those opposing his signs are "ignorant and uneducated" on
drug war and prohibition issues. If his signs come down, he vows to put
them up again.
"I have two crews working six hours a day, Saturday and Sunday, for the
next eight weeks. They're putting up signs and passing out flyers,"
Felger said, "I plan to be as loud and as boisterous as I can. This could
be the most important election of the millennium," he said, adding as mayor
he would promise to stop SE2, and establish legal brothels and free heroin
injection sites. As well, he would scrap a controversial bylaw that
empowers the city to charge landlords for the costs of removing marijuana
grow ops.
"George Ferguson has let this town degenerate into a prohibition-style
ghetto," he said.
Mary Beth MacKenzie, city manager of legislative services, said signs such
as Felger's, posted more than 30 days before the date of the elections,
will be removed under city signs bylaws. Signs can be posted on private
property with the permission of the owner, and on public property as long
as they don1t interfere with traffic or pedestrian visibility, or
regulatory signs.
School District 34 policy as posted in its Web site says political
advertising materials may not be distributed in schools or on school
grounds. Board chairman John Smith said that campaign signs are "absolutely
prohibited" from school property, and there are no exceptions to that rule.
"Principals will ensure that," he said. "We want our schools to be
absolutely apolitical."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom