Pair Plead No Contest to Removing Signs : Development: The Acton slow-growth activists had contended that the real estate posters were illegally posted.

The two slow-growth activists from Acton who allegedly tore down several hundred real estate sales signs each pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor vandalism charge Wednesday in Lancaster Superior Court in an eleventh-hour plea agreement.

Charles Brink, 51, and Joel Levy, 54, who were members of the unincorporated community’s Town Council when they destroyed the signs, entered their pleas before Superior Court Judge Charles Peven just after a jury had been selected to hear the case.

The two men had maintained that the signs were placed illegally and that zoning and law enforcement officials were lax in enforcing county ordinances. The men said the signs were a blight in the rustic mountain community southwest of Palmdale.

Brink has said that, as a citizen, he was entitled to “abate a nuisance” and had boasted of tearing down hundreds of “illegal signs.” Until Wednesday, Levy never admitted to taking down any signs.

Slow-growth activists closely followed the case to see if Brink’s unusual defense would stand up if the case went to trial.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has conceded that several of the signs taken down probably were posted illegally. But prosecutors maintained that Brink and Levy had no right to tear them down.

Both men were charged last year with two felony counts--one of conspiracy to commit grand theft and one of grand theft--and four misdemeanors, including three counts of vandalism and one of petty theft.

Those charges involved allegations that they had destroyed, vandalized or removed seven real estate signs in the Acton area between May and August of last year. Some of the signs belonged to developers or real estate agents while others were owned by private citizens.

Sentencing for both men is scheduled for Nov. 15.

Brink, who was reelected to the Town Council last month, faces up to one year in county jail and $1,000 in fines and could be ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Rhodes. Levy, whose council term expired last month, agreed to pay $800 in restitution and may be fined up to $1,000. Under the plea bargain, Levy faces no jail time.

“I think it was a good resolution, perhaps not perfect justice, but good nonetheless,” Rhodes said, adding that a trial would have lasted two weeks and involved 10 witnesses.

Brink, who owns Acton’s weekly community newspaper, the Vanguard News, said he only accepted the plea bargain to avoid “clogging up the courts.”