2024 is a Presidential election year and the election takes place not long after the Ocean Pines Board of Directors approved new guidelines association members must follow to place signs promoting candidates for any pollical office on their lots.

The new guidelines are based on Maryland and Federal law as such signs can be controlled in a Home Owners Association (HOA). In a nutshell, HOAs may, and OPA has, limited the time period for display of political office signs to a period of 30 days before the primary election, general election, or vote on some proposition; and 7 days after the primary election, general election, or vote on the proposition.

At the last board meeting a gentleman expressed his opinion during public comments that the 30-day period prior to the election should be 30 days prior to the date for early voting. No board member responded to him.

Back in early September I posted a message on OceanPinesForum.com to OPA counsel Bruce Bright, asking if he could shed some light on the new guidelines for political office candidate signs.

Bright responded with: "The allowable time for posting political signs under OPA sign regulations (within ARC Guidelines) is 30 days before and 7 days after the general election. This is consistent with State law. Under section 8-301(a) of the Election Law Article of the Maryland Code, the statewide 'general election shall be held on' the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, in each even-numbered year. Accordingly, in my view, the 30 day time period runs (backwards) from the day on which the general election occurs under State law, rather than from the day that early voting begins."

I then asked, "I suppose the next question is whether OPA can remove the signs or go through some lengthy process that might take months."

Former chair of the Bylaws and Resolutions Committee Jim Trummel took issue with Bright to some extent with regard to enforcement and whether the 30-day period should start prior to early voting date or the date of the statewide general election - this year on Tuesday, November 5th.

Bright responded to Trummel, "As for enforcement against sign violations (on lots as opposed to OPA common areas), since removing a sign from someone's property amounts to the taking of personal property, the M-01 [Resolution] process applies. If owners choose to deliberately 'game' that process, knowing that their continuing violation might end before the M-01 [Resolution] process runs its course, that's disappointing and would say more about that owner than it would about the enforcement process."

Bright's response was right-on, especially the last sentence.

OPA CPI inspectors subsequently issued 178 sign violation notices to association members for early political sign placement. Only five lot owners refused to comply. This is good news, as the vast majority of homeowners, when notified of the violation, complied rather than trying to "game" the system.

What happens now with those 11 non-compliance owners is unknown. Trummel believes a "violation is a violation" and since the violation was not corrected prior to the 30-day period, OPA should pursue the issue to court as with any other ignored violation. If nothing else, it might convince future violators to comply with the sign guidelines.

Now that lot owners are in the period when they may place political candidate signs on their property and with only about 14 days until the election, surprisingly, there are relatively few candidate signs around Ocean Pines compared to four years ago. Why is anyone's guess.

Why do lot owners even place such signs on their property? Does anyone actually believe such signs will influence their neighbors to vote for the candidate named on their sign, whether for National, State or County elected office?

Probably just wishful thinking they would disappear, but those signs are now as American as apple pie.