Posted on 01/28/2005 5:26:19 PM PST by Bean Counter
SALEM, Ore. - Two green Adopt-A-Highway signs reading "American Nazi Party" have popped up on a rural road a few miles from downtown Salem, and it's got people upset with the county for agreeing to put up the signs and worried about their neighborhood.
"I know we live in a free world. But that's not part of freedom, anything to do with the Nazis," said Barbara Hamblin, a 64-year-old who lives in a mobile home park just down the road from one of the signs.
"They had to have been off their rocker," she said.
The two signs were erected by Marion County road crews earlier this week, costing taxpayers $250 each.
County officials said they know people are upset. But free-speech guarantees in the Constitution prevented them from turning down the person who signed the American Nazi Party up with the local Adopt-A-Highway program.
"Our hands are pretty much tied from a legal standpoint," said Marion County Commissioner Patti Milne. "This has been very difficult, but the bottom line is they are entitled to participate."
"We can't pick and choose what parts of the constitution to follow," said Milne, a former Republican state legislator.
Marion County put up the signs after a person named C. Marchand applied for a permit under which the American Nazi Party agreed to help clean up the road.
A person answering the phone at the number given on the permit application said "maybe" when asked if he was Marchand.
He declined to make any further comment, referring inquiries to a Jim Ramm, who has previously been identified in news reports as leader of the Tualatin Valley Skins, a white-supremacist group that has been active in the Willamette Valley. No listing could be found for Ramm.
County officials said they got about a dozen complaints about the signs as of mid-Thursday afternoon, and more were coming in after their existence was broadcast on TV news.
The applicants for the sign may have been borrowing an idea from the Ku Klux Klan.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that free-speech rights prevent Missouri from barring the Klan from participating in that state's Adopt-A-Highway program.
Out on Salem's Sunnyview Road, someone expressed their views about the two signs by bending one of them in half.
The sign is near a house where Patti Buetler lives, practically in her yard.
Buetler said she had called county officials about the sign. "I don't want to get myself involved in this. All I want is for it to not be in my yard," she said. Buetler may get her wish.
County officials say the vandalized sign will be replaced, but only if the permit applicant pays for a new one.
"If they want to replace it, the Nazi Party will have to pay," said Dan Estes, spokesman for the county commissioners.
He said that is standard policy - the county erects the signs at its expense the first time but charges organizations to replace them if they are vandalized or stolen.
Funny, I don't see anything about adopt-a-highway progams in the Constitution.
That makes no sense! So by thei logic any group with any title can come along, apply to adopt a highway and Milne will rubber-stamp it?
That sign will be hanging upside down in some teen brat's room before it's all over.
I'd just pull out a can of spray paint. No fuss, no muss, no bother, no American Nazi Party sign.
Now I know where to dump my trash. ;-)
Funny, I don't see anything about adopt-a-highway progams in the Constitution.
I think it falls under the 1st Amendment on free speech.
I despise the Nazi's as much as anyone, but I will defend to the death their right to freedom of speech and the right to peacably assemble (emphasis on peacably).
Anything less than that would be Unamerican.
I work for Marion County, the problem is that there's already been a case in Missouri where the KKK won a lawsuit against that county for refusing them to adopt a road. Believe me, the Commissioners were against it, the director of public works was against it, and the employees of Public Works were against it. The only other option was to get rid of the adopt a road program entirely but then the Nazi guys could just move to adopt a park. The Comissioners and the Director were hoping that they'd get their 15 minutes of fame and then go away. As of today both signs have been stolen, and the Nazi group has to pay replacement costs, so they'll probably get tired of paying $300 for signs every week.
The nazis are idiots but it gets me to thinking. I wonder if we could get groups of local Freepers together to adopt a highway in various places.
It would also be a great way to irritate DUmmies and keepo a few roadways clean at the same time.
That's exactly what will happen.....until they get tired of replacing it.
"If they want to replace it, the Nazi Party will have to pay," said Dan Estes, spokesman for the county commissioners.
He said that is standard policy - the county erects the signs at its expense the first time but charges organizations to replace them if they are vandalized or stolen.
Ahhhh...so that's the catch. Gee I *sure* hope no one would vandalize these signs.
As much as I hate these scum, it was the right decision for the government to make.
Nice to see my home town make national news with such a great story. </sarcasm>
everyone wants to beat up the nazi party for this sign but what are you going to do when the leftist start taking down the _______ christian church sign?
free speech is free speech!
let them clean up the road, hell start dumping your trash there.
How long until Hamas or Al Queda get their signs?
What would happen to someone in the legal sense, if they took a can of white paint to these signs?
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Sam, would you or someone PLEASE explain to me why the Nazi organization which advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government is covered by the Constitution. About forty years ago, professors at N.Y. State universities refused to sign a statement that they were NOT communists pleading their right to privacy. They won in the Supreme Court as I recall. Then they opened a communist cell in the university at Buffalo to recruit new members. When the C.I.A. sent in students to find out what they were up to, the communists again went to the courts, and the Supreme Court upheld their right to privacy. What the hell is wrong with this?
By the way, I realize this article is about Nazis, but the point is the same.
**Out on Salem's Sunnyview Road, someone expressed their views about the two signs by bending one of them in half.**
Hey, I live close to this and can personally check it out!
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Nope, nothing about adopt-a-highway programs, or road signs, or anything relevant to this situation.
If this were about a privately-funded billboard on private property, you would have a point. But there is nothing in the First Amendment requiring government officials to open up programs such as this to everyone. It just isn't there.
And I certainly hope that when these signs are stolen, authorities fail utterly to investigate.
Maybe they could assign it to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed. He's pretty good at closing his eyes to illegal activity.
May be we'll get something better like Communist Party USA.
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