Times Staff Report

HIGHLAND | Some local officials are miffed because a new political party peppered the town with election signs about three weeks before they can be displayed legally.

After dotting residential yards for about a week, the signs disappeared early Monday and Councilman Mark Herak, R-2nd, said they were put up in error. Herak is running for re-election under the new party, the Highland First coalition.

During the council meeting Monday, officials made references to the signs and pointed out that a new ordinance, passed last November, prohibits the display of election signs until 30 days before the election. The old law was 45 days.

Herak, who is running with Konnie Kuiper and Dan Vassar on the Highland First ticket, said he and Vassar put up 350 signs across the town while thinking the law was still 45 days. "Once we found out it was 30 days ... we took them all down," he said.