Much ado about a sign against gophers in Tumwater | Opinion

TUMWATER, Wash. -- On the front lawn of a local business, gophers, small-town politics and the First Amendment have collided.

"It angered me," said Tumwater Pawn Brokers owner Barney McClanahan. "I couldn't believe they were taking it."

McClanahan, whose business sits along busy Capitol Boulevard SW, says he put up a sign in late May or early June in support of the STOP Thurston County campaign. The movement takes issue with a temporary county ordinance, which protects the almost-endangered Mazama pocket gopher and mandates that property owners have their land inspected for gophers before building.

Employees for the city of Tumwater took the sign down on June 11, said Mike Matlock, community development director for the city of Tumwater. Even though it was on private property, the sign was still in the public right-of-way, Matlock said.

"When we go out and do an enforcement, we don't pick and choose," said Matlock. "We take the signs we think are in the right-of-way."

"It is frightening that the government can intrude on people's private property and take their voice," McClanahan countered. "It makes me very angry, and it makes me fearful. I don't know what's coming next."

City inspectors believe the sign was "about a foot" from the sidewalk, Matlock said, and close to utility lines, and therefore fell within the public right-of-way. Conversely, McClanahan believes city codes are vague, and that he may have been targeted because of the hot-button issue and the sign's anti-government message.

"There were other signs that were untouched. There was a sign on the telephone pole right there," McClanahan said, pointing. "They didn't take it."

"The right-of-way changes on a given street and it changes from street to street," Matlock countered, "so we have to make some judgment calls out in the field, based on our knowledge of where the right-of-way line is."

The Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based nonprofit group sponsoring the STOP campaign, has now gotten involved. The group believes McClanahan's First Amendment rights were violated.

"(The city) can promote safety, and that's certainly legitimate as well, but they can't do at the cost of free speech," said Mike Reitz, general counsel for the Freedom Foundation. "That's really the concern."

McClanahan - who has since replaced the sign with a newer, bigger one in the same exact location - says he's weighing his legal options.

"I know they took my message, my voice," he added. "There were other signs that were untouched. It makes me very angry, and it makes me fearful."