Iredell County commissioner candidate Richard Coleman filed a report with the Troutman Police Department over the theft of dozens of his campaign signs.
Town manager says Richard Coleman’s signs were removed by mistake

BY MIKE FUHRMAN

Richard Coleman is willing to devote the considerable time, effort and money necessary to  a run for a seat the Iredell County Board of Commissioners.

Campaigning against six other Republicans in the March 5 primary election is challenging enough, Coleman said. He doesn’t believe he should have to deal with a Town of Troutman employee removing his campaign signs from private property and discarding them.

A security video obtained by the candidate shows Shane Harris, the town’s code enforcement officer, taking Coleman’s campaign signs from outside of a gas station on Highway 21. When Coleman questioned Harris about his actions, the code enforcement officer told him that it was not the only time he had done so.

Coleman said a total of 67 of his signs were removed on four different dates from two locations in Troutman. Under North Carolina law, it is a Class 3 misdemeanor for a person to “steal, deface, vandalize, or unlawfully remove a political sign that is lawfully placed.”

Coleman filed a report with the Troutman Police Department about the theft of his signs earlier this month, but he told the officer that he did not want to press charges.

The TPD officer who took the report consulted with the District Attorney’s Office about the case. Based on Coleman’s request and the guidance from the DA’s Office, the case was closed and classified as “prosecution declined.”

Coleman said he decided not to prosecute because he didn’t think the town employee “was doing it on his own.” In the video, Harris references the planning director when explaining why he removed the campaign signs.

Harris returned 25 signs to Coleman, but told the candidate that other signs he removed were put in a dumpster.

Coleman said he believes Town Manager Ron Wyatt knew the signs were being removed by a town employee or employees throughout the month of December and did nothing to prevent it. Each time after learning his signs were missing Coleman said he contacted Wyatt to express his frustration about his signs being stolen. Each time, he said, Wyatt assured him town employees were not involved.

Wyatt, a former chairman of the Iredell County Republican Party’s executive committee, denied that he or Harris has targeted Coleman.

Removing “illegal signs that have been trashing our community are one of the assigned duties of the Town’s Code Enforcement Officer,” Wyatt said in a statement. “The Code Enforcement Officer picked Richard Coleman’s political signs up as they were in the State Right of Way. … The Code Enforcement Officer failed to realize they still were on private property.”

The town manager explained that many candidates and campaign volunteers often assume they can place campaign signs in the state’s right of way at any time. State law allows that practice only during the 30 days prior to an election.

“They are illegally doing so most of the time,” Wyatt said. “The employee thought he was performing his duties appropriately until the error was discovered.”

Harris, the code enforcement officer, said he apologized when Coleman confronted him about the signs.

“I let him know that these were picked up by mistake as I thought they were in the Town’s right of way and also put out before the appropriate time and date,” Harris said. “Mr. Coleman spoke very ill towards me and kept interrupting me and making threats of felony charges all while being recorded. He asked several times in different ways if the Town Manager told me to do this. I advised him every time, ‘No, picking up illegal signs was my job.’ ”

“I felt very threatened and told Mr. Coleman he was kind of being a ‘butt,’ “ Harris added.

Coleman isn’t convinced the removal of his signs was an innocent mistake.

“I can believe a mistake was made. It’s hard to believe it was made four times consistently,” he said.

Coleman also cited the fact that the code enforcement officer did not remove the non-campaign signs that were placed alongside his campaign signs as evidence that he was intentionally targeted by the Town.

The candidate also finds it convenient that Wyatt located some of his missing signs on town property about an hour after a business owner told Wyatt that signs taken from the business owner’s property were air-tagged and that his security cameras had been repositioned to capture the thefts.

Coleman also believes that the Town of Troutman has an obligation to inform candidates if a town employee removes their signs.

Wyatt said that is not the town’s policy.

“As a practice, the Code Enforcement Officer has not been calling any sign ordinance violators,” he explained. “Otherwise, that would consume an appreciable amount of his time daily, telling the dozens of different violators. Coleman does not get any special treatment.”

Wyatt said the Town of Troutman is willing to reimburse Coleman for the cost of “up to a dozen signs that were improperly removed and discarded.”

The town manager said the entire incident was a mistake and has been blown out of proportion.

“There are opportunities for all people, those who are error-free or those who have made lots of errors, some serious, to show their true integrity and intent,” he said. “All errors we make are not always intended. All errors are not always a personal attack on someone. All errors are not egregious, causing an employee to be fired. Some people play the victim to get free publicity for everyone who will hear their slanted version of the facts while playing a victim.”

Meanwhile, Coleman said he will not tolerate his signs being illegally removed from private property by town employees  – or anyone else.

“Make no mistake. My signs will have trackers and if anyone else steals our signs I will prosecute,” Coleman said. “At some point you have to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

“There’s a lot of money invested in these campaigns,” he added. “It’s not just about the candidate. It’s about everybody who has invested in the campaign.”

20 thoughts on “Candidate expresses concerns after Troutman code enforcement officer removed his campaign signs from private property

Comments are closed.