Sign of Privilege

The thermometer is no longer frozen solid in Lake County. And, as the snow recedes, those first colorful harbingers of springtime are beginning to emerge from the frigid earth: the March 18 Primary Election Yardsigns.

Your LakeCountyEye has totally given up on trying to sow any yardsigns this year. The ground is frozen so deep, a tungsten carbide drill is needed to plant a sign. It's much easier to just jam that sign down into a mound of snow -- but that trick needs to be repeated every time the snowplow comes by.

The situation is so bad the Chicago Tribune wrote a story about it:

The adage in politics is that yard signs don't vote. And turnout in a primary election tends to be low — about 24 percent of registered voters cast ballots four years ago.
Few signs of primary election approaching

Is it true that yardsigns don't vote? Your LakeCountyEye decided to make some calls to find out:

Unfortunately this STOLMAN yardsign was not returning your LakeCountyEye's calls. It must have your LakeCountyEye's phone number blocked or something.

Haha, j/k.

The yardsign is on Lake County Forest Preserve property. Which every operative knows is illegal:

Lake County Forest Preserve District
Ordinance Governing the General Use of District Property

Now, David Stolman is a previous Lake County Board Chairman, and a current Lake County Forest Preserve Commissioner. And it may just be that some entitlement of noblesse oblige cedes to Stolman special access to Forest Preserve property that is denied the rest of the commoners. Your LakeCountyEye prefers only to harbor charitable thoughts, however, and suspects that Stolman is simply unaware of the Forest Preserve District sign ordinance. Of course, Stolman did approve the same ordinance when he voted to approve the Forest Preserve's Revised General Use Ordinance in 2011. But 2011 was such a long time ago.  And when you've sat on the County Board most of your adult life -- who can keep up?