Plethora of Scofflaw Signs Has Policeman Seeing Red

San Diego cop Isaac (Nick) Nichols is cruising the mean streets of City Heights.

He sees signs of lawlessness on every corner, defiantly mocking the civic notion of decency, defiling America’s Finest City. He is sorely offended.

Each cop has a dream.

Gaining sergeant’s stripes. Getting a coveted spot on the homicide squad. Or maybe putting the Bloods and Crips in stony lonesome forever.

Nichols, 51, a cop for 13 years, has a dream that is more modest but no less passionate: He wants to rid San Diego of illegally placed signs.

Signs on telephone poles and utility poles. Signs on transformer boxes and fences and every damn place.

Garage sale signs. For rent signs. Repo sale signs. Political signs. Car wash signs. Lost dog signs. Rock concert signs. Swap meet signs. Signs in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Nichols sees them all, and the specter of such rampant disregard of the law leaves him fuming.

“It’s not just Eastern Division,” he says in disgust. “It’s the entire city!”

He lectures people that the Municipal Code says no signs on public property, no signs on the public right of way, and no signs on private property without the owner’s permission.

Some people just don’t get it. They put up the same scofflaw signs over and over.

That’s when the mild-mannered Nichols, a retired Navy chief, plays it tough: He sics the boys from the licensing bureau on unrepentant recidivists.

“I like to see people have garage sales, but zoning says they can only have three a year,” he says. “There are people who try to run a business out of their garage.”

Illegal signs, he says, are ugly, dangerous to drivers (he’s even seen garage sale signs plastered on stop signs), and hazardous to telephone lineman whose legs could get shredded on the nails of bigger signs.

For the record: Nichols holds the rank of agent (just below sergeant) and has a full plate of police duties, including patrol and evidence gathering.

But it’s his anti-illegal-sign campaign that rouses his law-and-order blood:

“It’s one way to clean up the city.”

Spinning Wheels

Seen and heard.

* Automotive politics, mayoral division.

Peter Navarro is making much of his pro-labor, buy-American views, but look for detractors to make a mini-issue out of the fact that only car he owns is foreign: a 1988 Volvo.

He also drives a 1991 Mercedes leased by his wife.

For the record: Susan Golding owns one native, one foreign: a 1987 Jeep Cherokee and a 1991 Acura.

A spokesman says Golding drives the (American-built) Cherokee, her daughter the Acura.

* The (Escondido) Times Advocate gets a “dart” from the latest Columbia Journalism Review for declining to do a news story about a local car dealer selling a car to an Alzheimer’s victim.

CJR says the story was ducked for fear that car dealers might pull their ads.

* There’s always a local angle (although not always as strong it could be).

CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” plans a Mike Wallace segment on gays in law enforcement this Sunday.

Including an interview with ex-FBI agent Frank Buttino of San Diego who was fired after his bosses found out he’s gay. (He’s suing to get his job back.)

But interviews with San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen and an openly gay San Diego beat cop did not make the final cut.

* How serious is Mayor Maureen O’Connor about replacing San Diego’s appointees to the Board of Port Commissioners if they don’t help the city get some of the port’s excess cash?

She’s already soliciting applications for replacements.

* I know Aztec fans love Marshall Faulk, but those “Faulk U” rooter buttons are a bit much.

In the Know

One of the attorneys for John Littleford, the ousted headmaster for La Jolla Country Day School who is suing for damages, is Scott S. Payzant from the San Diego firm Higgs, Fletcher & Mack.

He should know something about educational in-fighting, etc.

He’s the son of Tom Payzant, superintendent of San Diego city schools.