Mayoral candidate Sophie Barker had been out and about around the city fixing, replacing and removing defacement from her election signs.
She noticed fellow mayoralty candidate Richard Seager had added stickers to the posts of her and other candidates’ signs, and made a complaint to the electoral officer about the unwelcome additions.
The small stickers omitted the "authorised by" phrase required by law.
Not only were the additions illegal and punishable by a fine of up to $4000, they were "rude to other people’s signs", Cr Barker said.
Mr Seager said his stickers were not placed directly on other candidates’ actual signs and instead placed on the wooden posts holding them up.
However, he did acknowledge putting the stickers directly on Green Party candidate signs.
He said the stickering was done in an effort to draw attention to the visual pollution the campaigning signs caused.
"It’s a bit rich for them to be complaining about a small 150mm by 80mm sticker on the wooden posts of their signs when their signs are anything up to a few metres wide," Mr Seager said.
He said now that attention had been drawn to the matter, he removed the stickers yesterday afternoon.
Mayoralty candidate Lee Vandervis had been having a difficult time with his election signage; replacing, moving and editing them over the campaigning period.
Now he has had a tandem transporter trailer stolen from his Portsmouth Dr campaigning site, and the police had no leads on who the culprit might be.
"I think there’s a reasonable chance that I’ll get it back eventually," Cr Vandervis said.
He said the trailer had many distinguishing features, including being constructed from black strong scaffolding tube, ally platforms, ladder-rack style ramps, LED lights and a hand winch.
Anyone who has information on the missing rig (number plate Z537N) should contact police.
On top of the trailer thief, Mr Vandervis has had 11 other large signs stolen from around the city — something he no longer can afford to replace.
In 2019 he had a large sign stolen by students — which was quickly retrieved after a call to Campus Watch — but that had not been the case this election.
"It’s just hard to know what people are going to do with that many posters," he said.
