Vandalized signs are no joke to incumbent

By KATHY MELLOTT
The Tribune-Democrat

CRESSON Sat, May 17 2008

— An incumbent candidate for the Penn Cambria School Board would like to think his vandalized and disappearing campaign signs is someone’s idea of a Halloween joke.
But Larry Behe says if that’s the case, it has gotten out of hand.
“I’m definitely being targeted,” Behe said Tuesday. “It’s just amazing. I started out with 48 signs, and I have eight or 10 left.”
Behe, a Pepsi-Cola truck driver, is serving a two-year appointment filling a resignation.
He is one of six people seeking five posts on the school board.
For two months, Behe constructed and painted four dozen signs. He used the top to ask voters to return proven leaders to the board and had his name on the bottom.
But in some areas, the signs disappear as soon as they’re put up.
“Two places in Ashville and Cresson I put them up three times, and they’re gone,” Behe said. “Some are spray-painted, some are ripped apart, the rest are plucked out of the ground, and they are gone while others in the same area still stand.”
Behe said of the 48 he made, about six were in common areas along highway rights of way beside other campaign signs. The others were on private property with permission.
He has filed complaints with state and local police but no arrests have been made.
Taking or vandalizing campaign signs violates state law, but catching offenders is difficult, said Fred Smith, Cambria County director of elections.
The offenses vary from theft to vandalism and criminal trespass if the signs are taken from private property.
“It’s not uncommon in Cambria County,” Smith said. “You got a clique of people who support a candidate who go out and destroy signs.”
Behe is confident other candidates are not responsible.
“But it may be supporters of someone and they think they are helping them,” Behe said.