Scio Township resident claims city officer overstepped bounds by removing anti-school millage signs

"It was just utterly astounding," Boyle said. "The officer said, 'You're violating community standards.' And I said, 'Whose standards?' And he said, 'The city of Ann Arbor.'"

Boyle said the officer was surprised to learn he was in Scio Township, which is not under the city's regulations. Boyle retrieved his signs from the back of the officer's pickup truck - and said he noticed something else.

"His truck bed was full of signs, all of them recommending a vote against the millage - no signs for the millage, and no signs for Argo Pond," Boyle said. "I suspect he was out there doing somebody's (political) bidding."

City Administrator Roger Fraser said he has personally apologized to Boyle for the incident.

Boyle is shown next to one of the four signs he has up along Miller Road.

Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com

"I already sent him a response saying we screwed up and I apologize," Fraser said Thursday. "We've talked to the officer, we've corrected his knowledge of the corporate limits, and it won't be repeated."

Fraser said he doesn't believe any political motivation was behind it. He said the officer was just doing his job and unknowingly went outside the city limits when responding to complaints about signs being in the right-of-way along Miller Road.

City ordinances prohibit signs from being in the public right-of-way, mostly because they can be a visual nuisance to drivers. The public right-of-way is typically defined as the area between a street and sidewalk.

"It's a human error, as far as I'm concerned, and has nothing to do with politics," Fraser said of the incident, emphasizing the city hasn't taken a stance on the millage issue and handles enforcement of all signs equally. "It doesn't matter what side of the issue they're on, we don't allow them."

The Washtenaw Intermediate School District is asking voters to approve a new 2-mill tax Tuesday that would raise about $30 million annually for school districts countywide.

John Seto, a deputy chief in the Ann Arbor Police Department, said the department's Community Standards Unit receives complaints throughout the year about signs being in the public right-of-way. He said it's not just campaign signs that get taken down, but yard sale signs, real estate signs, and any other signs that aren't where they belong also get removed.

Seto said officers took down 109 signs in September; numbers for October aren't yet available.

Seto and Fraser both said they couldn't quantify the number of pro-millage signs versus anti-millage signs that have been confiscated. But Fraser said it seems reasonable to assume more anti-millage signs have been taken down because there simply are more of them throughout the city.

"The only signs I've seen were the ones against it," he said.

Seto said it's technically a civil infraction to have a sign in the public right-of-way, but the city doesn't usually issue a citation. For instance, he said, no citations were issued for any of the 109 violations last month.

Boyle, whose four signs are back up, is a longtime critic of what he labels fiscal mismanagement in Ann Arbor and its schools. He is a professional actuary, runs a strategy consulting firm and teaches mathematics at Eastern Michigan University.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.