By Stephen Schwartz
Re “2 YouTubes on How to Make a Paspalis Sign Disappear” and “Has Sign Language Become Obscene? Taylor’s Signs Were Raided”
I have just finished reading Scott Malsin’s letter and Vernon Taylor’s comments about lawn signs being removed during this School Board campaign. I agree that this is something that should not happen to any candidate.
Mr. Malsin implies that this is a relatively new phenomenon, and that and it is being done by “a political faction” that opposes Kathy Paspalis’s re-election. I have lived in Culver City for over 40 years. I have been involved in probably 30 elections, one way or another, including putting up several thousand lawn signs. Sign vandalism and destruction have occurred in every local election in Culver City as far back as I can remember.
I want to thank Mr. Malsin for putting up security cameras, supposedly at several locations, to identify the culprits and for posting the video on YouTube. I watched the two videos he posted. They were both taken at the same location, the Culver Motor Clinic at the intersection of Jefferson Boulevard and Overland Avenue.
Both show the same person removing a Paspalis sign on different days. The person in the video is an older male wearing a baseball cap. I am willing to guess he just doesn’t like Kathy Paspalis or the way her sign looks. This is his way of showing it.
In past years, the majority of sign vandalism has been along Braddock Drive, near Culver City High School. It has been assumed students did it on their way to and from school.
Mr. Malsin, don’t try to create a conspiracy where none exists. If there is a conspiracy against the Paspalis campaign, how do you explain Vernon Taylor’s signs being taken down all over town, including the fence at Culver Motor Clinic? The reality is that most likely the person removing signs either doesn’t like that candidate or is just causing trouble.
Every campaign committee has, at one time or another, attempted to blame another campaign of doing something like this to discredit an opposing candidate.
I agree that the last three campaigns have been the nastiest I have seen. It is a sorry state of affairs when members of “a political faction” working on a campaign make statements about other candidates that they know aren’t true. More than one political faction is working this election.
If you make a false statement enough times, someone will believe it. This is happening not only at the local level but at all levels of government.
Mr. Schwartz, a School Board member in the 1970s, may be contacted at ssscchwar@pacbell.net
