BANGOR, Maine — The Downtown Bangor Partnership loves to see flowers, herbs, vegetables and other plants springing up in the city’s community gardens, but campaign signs?
Not so much.
Call it a sign of the times. Joshua Gass, chairman of the downtown revitalization and advocacy group, told the City Council during its meeting on Monday that the group sought an amendment to city regulations that would bar campaign signs from the more than 100 gardens throughout downtown.
The small campaign placards might mistakenly look like endorsements of candidates and issues by the gardens’ sponsors and the businesses closest to them — an uncomfortable impression in this country’s volatile political climate, Gass said.
The unwanted signage does typically appear in the city’s gardens during election season, but this year’s signs were especially numerous, said Gass, whose nonprofit organization’s directory lists more than 150 businesses.
Councilors questioned whether the gardens would need signs themselves delineating them from other green spaces downtown.
Councilor Gibran Graham, one of three councilors to win re-election last week, said that the majority of signs in community gardens “were not City Council or school committee save one.”
“That was my own, but I do want to say I placed it within my own [sponsored] garden,” Graham said.
Councilors agreed to refer the matter to committee for review.