{"id":8421,"date":"2014-10-08T20:16:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T00:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=8421"},"modified":"2014-10-08T20:16:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T00:16:25","slug":"candidates-take-aim-at-rampant-sign-vandalism-across-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/candidates-take-aim-at-rampant-sign-vandalism-across-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Candidates take aim at rampant sign vandalism across Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Candidates vying for a place on Aurora Council might have differing visions for the Town, but one thing most seem to agree on is rampant vandalism against election signs needs to stop. <\/p>\n

Emails have been flying fast and furious among candidates over the last week decrying vandalism where entire streets of signs can be wiped out overnight, spray painted or slashed, often leading to them questioning whodunit. <\/p>\n

At least one of the culprits has been seen by candidate Tom Mrakas. Mr. Mrakas told The Auroran he was out doing his rounds around 6.30 a.m. on Sunday morning putting up and repairing his own signs, when he saw one person \u201cjust wailing\u201d on the signs with his hands. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just trouncing the signs and going crazy,\u201d says Mr. Mrakas. \u201cI pulled up, started honking the horn, saying \u2018What are you doing\u2019 but he didn\u2019t seem to have a care in the world and just carried on smashing signs. I wrote his licence plate number down and called the police right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The person in question then proceeded to Town Hall, he said, where he expressed his displeasure by spitting on the doors.<\/p>\n

Candidate Anthony Pullano has seen swift destruction of signs as well, noting he was out with a friend last week putting up signs just north of Bayview and Wellington when their drill died. Getting the sign partially erected, the duo made the short trip back to his house for a re-charge. But, when they came back just minutes later, the sign was damaged and pulled from the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho does that?\u201d said Mr. Pullano. \u201cThose are the types of questions that leave a candidate wondering who is behind it. That wasn\u2019t a child, that wasn\u2019t a kid, that wasn\u2019t a rowdy person. It even seems Svetla Topouzova had her signs thrown down with a [stake] going through her head. This is not a child doing this type of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he doesn\u2019t have signs out yet in this campaign, candidate Greg Cook said the \u201cnonsense and vandalism\u201d was sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is sad and awful that people are being disrespectful of the investment people are putting forward and they are being disrespectful of themselves,\u201d says Mr. Cook. \u201cThey are saying they don\u2019t deserve an opportunity\u2026but six weeks is not that long to have some clutter on the boulevard. It is incumbent on the citizens to act accordingly through governance [to ask the Town, the Region, and Police to ask what] can be improved the next time.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Candidates vying for a place on Aurora Council might have differing visions for the Town, but one thing most seem to agree on is rampant vandalism against election signs needs to stop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2bP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 07:28:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}