Donna Courtright continues battle with town over fines

By Jeff Kearns

They were some expensive signs. After 24th Assembly District Candidate Donna Courtright's campaign signs were pulled up by town workers during the June primary last year, she learned she was getting slapped with a $1,350 sign removal fee--27 signs at $50 each.

The town said the signs were in the public right-of-way or otherwise improperly located, and while Courtright doesn't dispute that they were, she's angry at the town for telling her to remove the signs but not telling her which signs.

Courtright, a Los Gatos Republican who lost to Jim Cunneen in the primary, appealed the fine to the Town Council. On April 5, the council turned her down.

Councilmember Steve Blanton suggested reducing the fine to $500, but the rest of the council remained unpersuaded, citing the need not to start making exceptions.

Blanton and Joe Pirzynski voted against upholding the fine, saying it should be reduced and that the notification policy should be modified, but the other councilmembers remained unpersuaded.

Courtright, however, didn't give up. She came back to the council May 3 during verbal communications with a formal request to re-open her hearing because she had new information. Councilmembers agreed and added her to the May 24 budget meeting agenda.

The new information, she says, came to light when she did a little digging after the council decided not to waive her fine.

She said that when she called the town corporation yard to pick up the signs, the employees she talked to said they didn't know where the signs were, which Courtright says makes it impossible to verify where the signs were planted.

In addition, she insists that the town failed to follow its own policy of notifying candidates in writing or by phone that their signs are in violation, the location of the signs, that there is a fee for removal, and that they have three days to comply.

"Planning Department procedures weren't followed," she said. "If they had been, I wouldn't be in this situation."

According to a report to the council by Planning Director Lee Bowman, town staff left at least one phone message for Courtright about the signs, and the town has no record that she returned the call. When staff didn't hear back from her, the report says, the signs were removed and the bill was sent to Courtright.

At the April hearing, Bowman also said that candidates get written notices of sign violations until the final days before the election, when they get phone calls instead.

The $1,350 fine may be hefty, but it's not the biggest: Some campaigns have paid fines of $2,000 to $4,000, Bowman said.

On top of the hefty fines, Courtright claims that when she recently looked into refinancing her home, she discovered that the town had already given the fine to a collection agency before the council had heard her appeal, causing her credit rating to slip a notch. She asked the town to call the agency and tell the agency the collection request was a mistake.

She said the collection agency "has reported a delinquency to the credit agency. My A-plus rating that my husband and I have worked hard to maintain has been downgraded to an A-minus because of this, which could make it hard to get a good interest rate."

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