VILLAGE OF SLINGER, Wis. — More than a dozen residents in the Village of Slinger received letters to remove signs or flags from their properties.
The village received a complaint involving about 17 different addresses. The complaint states, "Some of the buildings with Trump signs."
"We want to keep our sign up. It's, you know, it's who we are," Marian Nowak said.
Nowak and her husband, Raymond, said they have had a Trump sign in their yard for about nine years.
"It's not a campaign sign or an election sign. It's our yard decoration," Nowak said.
The Nowaks received a letter from the village building inspector stating that their signs violate an ordinance and need to be removed.
"Most people like it. And then, all of a sudden, just one person. It doesn’t make sense," Nowak said.
TMJ4 obtained a copy of the complaint that was sent to the village. The village president said it’s the first complaint about signs in nearly three years.
"This is our property. We don’t have anything on public land, and this is ours. We feel we should be able to have whatever we want on our land," Nowak explained.
The Nowaks and others are now on the village’s radar because the complaint was filed.
"This is a complaint-based system here because we don’t want to pay our building inspector to run around and hassle people," Village President Scott Stortz said.
Stortz said this all comes down to the length of time the sign stays up.
"Our ordinance talks about the length of time for signs not the content for signs,” Stortz explained.
The ordinance states that the sign can't be up for “seven consecutive days or 30 cumulative days in a one year period.”
"Our response to the complaint is not politically motivated," Stortz said.
TMJ4 did try speaking to the woman who filed the complaint, but we did not hear back in time for this report.
As far as the ordinance goes, Stortz said he will have the topic added to the agenda for the village board meeting on March 17.
"We will do our best to come up with an ordinance that makes sense, but I can guarantee you we’re not going to find the perfect ordinance," Stortz explained.
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