CYPRESS : No Charges Pressed in Removal of Recall Signs

After investigating an incident in which political signs for next week’s recall election were pulled, police have decided that no charges will be filed, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Lt. John Schaefer said officers on Monday morning investigated complaints that recall signs were being taken down in the Moody Street area.

Schaefer said the investigating officer found that two workers had removed “all types of signs” from vacant lots at the intersections of Ball Road and Moody, and Cerritos Avenue and Moody.

The workers, who did not speak English, told an interpreter they had been ordered by their boss at the Cypress Land Co. to remove the signs, Schaefer said.

Investigators found that about 50 signs had been removed and taken to a dumpster at Cypress Land Co.’s construction site for a sports-distribution warehouse on Warland Drive near Katella Avenue and Valley View Street, Schaefer said.

“These were both signs for and against the recall, and even some signs for a custom auto show,” he said.

An employee of Cypress Land had ordered all signs on company property removed, but the workers mistakenly took down some signs on property not owned by Cypress Land, Schaefer said. “The boss did not have any malicious intent,” he said. “It was a misunderstanding.”

Activists seeking to recall Mayor Cecilia L. Age, Councilwoman Gail H. Kerry and Councilman Walter K. Bowman had alleged that the sign removal was part of an attempt to hamper their efforts.