New Baden Mayor Christy Picard is asking a property owner to remove profanity from the 300-square-foot political sign he has hanging from his building on the town's main road.
The sign reads "Trump 2020 no more" (expletive). Its size is the maximum allowed in New Baden's zoning ordinance.
The village determined that it can't force the property owner, Brandt Kehrer, to take it down because the sign's language is considered protected speech under the First Amendment, according to Picard.
Kehrer declined an interview Friday. In public postings online, Kehrer has said he put up the sign to express his "political point of view." It refers to President Donald Trump's campaign for re-election.
Kehrer looked into the village's codes and ordinances and paid for a permit to "hang my sign right and according to the law," he said online.
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Since it was installed Tuesday on Kehrer's Hanover Street property, Picard said she and other village employees have received "dozens" of complaints about the profanity.
The mayor issued a public statement about it Friday, which confirmed that Kehrer's application to hang the sign was approved. The village didn't know what was written on Kehrer's sign until it was installed because the permit application doesn't ask about the content of the signs for legal reasons, according to Picard.
Picard wrote in the statement that she doesn't condone the sign.
"I just felt that the profanity was crossing the line," she said in an interview Friday.
She said that some of the people who complained have told village employees that they would no longer visit New Baden businesses or eat at its restaurants.
"The fact is that it could impact the businesses as we move forward, and we just got to Phase 4. We can actually open our restaurants again," Picard said.
Illinois leaders announced Friday that they were lifting pandemic restrictions on indoor dining and social gatherings in the metro-east, moving the region back to Phase 4 of the state's five-phase plan to reopen the economy. The metro-east previously had stricter restrictions than other parts of the state.
In her statement, Picard wrote that Kehrer's sign had also wasted taxpayers' dollars. She explained in an interview that she was referring to the amount of time village employees have spent fielding complaints or meeting to discuss the sign.
"I have spent literally almost my entire days since Tuesday night working through this and so has my village administrator and so has our village clerk," Picard said. "... We're still going to be fielding these for a while, I believe, until it gets changed."
Picard said village trustees are planning to discuss it at the next board meeting, which will take place virtually on Oct. 19 through video conferencing.