Murphy Offers Reward in Sign Thefts

Someone's been stealing political signs, and Montville Town Council member Gary Murphy is offering a reward to find out who that someone is.

There's $100 for the person who gives him reliable information on who took about 35 of his political signs.

The theft of the signs is more than a random act of political tomfoolery, Murphy believes.

"It's personal," he said Tuesday.

Murphy says the signs were taken from all over town between Sunday at midnight and Monday at about 7 a.m. He has alerted the Montville Police Department.

Sgt. Matt Northrop says officers are keeping an eye out for anyone with signs, but beyond that, there's not much that can be done.

Most of the signs were taken from Oakdale, Murphy said. And as you drive through Oakdale, you see signs from many other candidates, of both parties, but nearly no Gary Murphy signs.

"Mine were with other signs," Murphy says. "They didn't take anyone else's. They just took mine. , it didn't matter. Murphy is a Democrat.

Donna Jacobson says it's not unusual for signs to be stolen. She says about 25 or 30 of the 100 or so she's put up this year have gone missing. Last year, she says, people stole nearly all of Rosetta Jones's signs. Jacobson and Jones are both unaffiliated candidates running for mayor and council respectively, and both are endorsed by the Republican Town Committee and Independence for Montville Parties.

"You put the investiment in for the name association," Jacobson says, "and you're going to lose them. It happens."

Ellen Hillman, a Republican running for re-election, says in the comment area of this story that more than half of the signs she put up in Oakdale have been stolen.

Hillman and Murphy both point out that the thefts have financial consequences for the candidates. Murphy says he paid about $6 for each sign, so in addition to being a political detriment, an annoyance and an illegal act, it's costing him money, as well.

Murphy says he is going to have the signs reprinted, and he's going to put them out in the daytime and take them in at night, and ask his friends to do the same.