{"id":8422,"date":"2018-10-25T18:53:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T01:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=8422"},"modified":"2025-12-20T18:54:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T02:54:25","slug":"self-inflicted-injury-exposes-both-candidates-demeanor-in-supervisor-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2018\/10\/25\/self-inflicted-injury-exposes-both-candidates-demeanor-in-supervisor-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Self Inflicted Injury Exposes both candidate\u2019s demeanor in Supervisor Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cris Alarcon]<\/em><\/p>\n

Board Of Supervisor member Sue Novasel\u2019s re-election campaign was disrupted by her direct involvement in the removal of opposition campaign signage just before Vote-By-Mail ballots arrived. \u00a0Although the removal by the Supervisor does not constitute a \u201ccrime\u201d it was extremely bad PR and brought her motives into question at a critical time for any election cycle only to be exploited by her opposition. \u00a0In many ways an election is more about public perception than actual facts. By her direct involvement in the removal of campaign signs she has given her opposition the opportunity to call her on the carpet in a very public manner. \u00a0By doing so he has exposed his own political leanings in a way he has denied in the past.<\/p>\n

In the case of Incumbent Novasel it has exposed that she is thin-skin when it comes to the harsh realites of politics as she labels a relatively mild campaign opposition sign as \u201chate\u201d speech. \u00a0For her challenger it pierces his claim of being a Conservative as he leans on the very Liberal State\u2019s Attorney General as he accuses the County\u2019s DA of being unable to do his job due to fear of having his budget cut by the County\u2019s Supervisors.<\/p>\n

The heat of a political campaign is intense and often exposes the weakness in candidates. \u00a0This is the power of our system of political contests and benefits the public. Both the incumbent and the challenger exposed more than they may have intended.<\/p>\n

All political professionals are taught that the oppositions signs are sacrosanct and a Hands-Off policy is not just applied to the candidates, but also strongly instructed to the campaign\u2019s volunteers. \u00a0Our election history is replete with elections lost by front-runners when an impropriety involving anti-candidate signs becomes newsworthy at a critical time during the election cycle. Theft and defacing of campaign signs is a stable of every election. \u00a0That is not even newsworthy as it is so common. It is news when the acts are tied to the candidate directly.<\/p>\n

When that happens, it is a self-inflicted wound.<\/p>\n

This is the position that Supervisor Sue Novasel has put herself into. \u00a0As would be expected, her opponent, Kenny Curtzwiler is working hard to use it against her. \u00a0In doing so he has also exposed his own weaknesses in some areas.<\/p>\n

During an election cycle there are many rules in place that both allow for the candidates for public office to make known to the public their position of pertinent subject matter related to the election, and rules of disclosure relating to who is paying for the message being presented. \u00a0In the former a public disclosure is required of who is paying for the message in the form of a \u201cFPPC Number\u201d included on the sign that publicly discloses those paying for the message distribution. Without this discernible number the sign is not legal for public presentation. The exception to this rule is that anyone may make claims related to candidates or election issues with their own money and place it on property they own.<\/p>\n

When using the \u201cpublic\u201d property, including lands and mail are used to propagate the message in California, a FPPC number must be included so the public may find out who is paying for the message.<\/p>\n

In our county a private property owner may remove and destroy an unwanted political sign at their own will. \u00a0Prudent campaigners will get permission in writing before placing a sign in order to defend their candidate if a future dispute should arise. \u00a0If the sign is improperly placed in a Public Right of Way the DOT is charged with sign removal. Sometimes they will take the sign down and simply \u201clay it down\u201d in place for the sign placer or candidate\u2019s workers to retrieve. \u00a0In other cases they may take the signs to the DOT yard and inform the candidate that they have impounded the signs and they are able to be retrieved at the DOT yard.<\/p>\n

These are the general practices of political sign placement and removal in our county. \u00a0Anything else is unusual and often therefore newsworthy.<\/p>\n

Campaigning is truly a high-stress activity and takes a thick skin and prudence in reactionary statements. \u00a0A seasoned campaign manager servers as an insulator between the candidate and the harsh stresses of the campaign trail. \u00a0They will make sure that if a candidate gets directly involved with a sign removal, that the Press is called to be at the scene to take pictures and statements, as they know that the Press will inevitably get involved and it is better to present the activity in a light that benefits the candidate\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Supervisor Novasel decided to take matters into her own hands and now opponent Curtzwiler is making hay as the sun shines on the election.<\/p>\n

In response to her challenger’s accusation of \u201cStealing\u201d a sign Supervisor Novasel wrote, \u201cI believe in 1st Amendment rights \u00a0and respect differences of opinion in the midst of a campaign. However, disturbing hate signs have recently emerged in various places. Driving down Pioneer Trail last week, I saw a sign with a red circle and red slash running from top left to bottom right \u00a0with the diagonal red slash crossing over my last name Novasel. The sign did not advocate for a political candidate or ballot issue. There was nothing on the sign to represent ownership, nor was it labeled as linked to a political action committee or my opponent. From my viewpoint, this sign amounted to a target placed anonymously to frighten my family and me… In my opinion, the sign was representing hate speech and threatening towards all members of my family. It was offensive in its placement\u2026 I removed the sign not knowing whom it belonged to and drove it to the El Dorado County Department of Transportation Office in Meyers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she acted on her own she added, \u201cthe Department of Transportation is responsible for right of way property on county roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the District Attorney was pressed by Curtzwiler to press charges against Novasel over the sign removal the DA responded, \u201cNo charges will be filed because the sign was posted in a right of way, which is improper. Any public employee may remove a sign that is posted in a prohibited area, such as this one. The person who posted the sign did not realize it was a right of \u00a0way and has seen other signs posted in this same area, leading them to believe it would be ok to put the sign there.”<\/p>\n

Dissatisfied by this response Curtzwiler accused the DA of Bias, accused the position of being on the Board of Supervisors by above the law, and appealed to the State\u2019s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra to press charges.<\/p>\n

The following is in response to the removal of an anti-Sue Novasel campaign sign and an \u00a0investigation by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office. The DA’s office made the following statement – “No charges will be filed because the sign was posted in a right of way, which is improper. Any public employee may remove a sign that is posted in a prohibited area, such as this one. The person who posted the sign did not realize it was a right of \u00a0way and has seen other signs posted in this same area, leading them to believe it would be ok to put the sign there.”<\/p>\n

In a Media Release issued on October 22 by Kenny Curtzwiler, candidate for El Dorado County Supervisor, District 5 wrote:<\/p>\n

“the county\u2019s district attorney refuses to prosecute and has defended Novasels ‘lawless conduct\u2019\u2026 local District Attorney Vern Pierson, who Curtzwiler said depends on Supervisor Novasel to approve the budget for his office.”<\/p>\n

“Becerra is being asked to intervene because the local prosecutor should have recused himself due to a conflict of interest” Curtzwiler said. “As a candidate for the Board of Supervisors, 5th District… it is very alarming when my opponent, incumbent Supervisor Sue Novasel, is caught red handed stealing private property, a political sign she did not like. \u00a0What made it even more outrageous, our District Attorney refused to prosecute, implicitly condoning lawlessness, with some baseless arguments… Supervisors approve the budget for District Attorney Vern Pierson and a wide range of activities by that office… The conflicts of interest present here are significant. Supervisors approve the budget for District Attorney Vern Pierson and a wide range of activities by that office. \u00a0Both the elected office holders, Novasel and Pierson, although from different political parties, share some of the same special interests to finance their campaigns… Therefore, I am requesting that your office investigate the facts and vigorously prosecute as the evidence warrants and seek an immediate injunctive relief to prevent Sue Novasal and any other persons from vandalizing political signs.<\/p>\n

Curtzwiler added, “our District Attorney refused to prosecute, implicitly condoning lawlessness, with some baseless arguments… While District Attorney Pierson has recused himself in some cases involving politicians, asking your office to handle matters where it would appear to be improper for his office to do so, he regrettably refused to do so here, giving some flimsy excuses that appear fabrications for his defense of Supervisor Novasel. The odor is unmistakable. The county has a code enforcement department to handle these issues, there is no reason for her to do that work. \u00a0\u00a0The DA\u2019s excuse that any \u201cpublic employee\u201d can do this is specious since she was not acting in her official capacity and because she is an elected office holder, not a public employee as the law defines those words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cris Alarcon] Board Of Supervisor member Sue Novasel\u2019s re-election campaign was disrupted by her direct involvement in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8423,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions\/8423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}