Saugus campaign signs vandalized

SAUGUS – Janice Jarosz’ daughter thought nothing about it when she heard a car outside her mother’s house around 11:45 p.m. Saturday, until she discovered Sunday morning that the campaign sign in the yard had been vandalized.”Right in my front yard,” she said. “They spray-painted the sign right in my front yard.”Jarosz, whose sign read “Janice K. Jarosz for Selectman,” said about 10 of her signs scattered all over town were hit, but the vandal only obliterated her last name with red or orange spray paint.”People can still vote for Janice K.,” she quipped. “They just took out my last name.”Jarosz said she is baffled by the vandal’s technique, pointing out there isn’t another Janice running so she isn’t sure what the vandal’s message is. She joked that with three men named Stephen running, the vandal or vandals would have caused much more confusion if they had hit those signs.Jarosz said she left the signs up over the weekend because she wanted people to see what had happened. By Monday afternoon, however, she had replaced most of the signs that she knew to be defaced.”I just don’t understand – what was the message?” she asked. “Generally signs get trashed but this was so deliberate, so purposeful.”Jarosz is not the only one with sign woes – incumbent Michael Kelleher said he has suffered sign issues as well.”I’ve had about 12 missing that I’ve had to replace,” he said. “After doing this for 10 years, this is a little different. Usually kids knock them down or they get trashed but this year they’re just gone.”Kelleher said he has heard from other candidates who have had sign problems as well and it’s not only frustrating but it also gets expensive. Between the printing, the posts and the time and effort to put the signs up, Kelleher estimates he spends about $6 per sign.”It adds up,” he said.Jarosz agreed, but said she wasn’t going to let the spray paint deter her.”Maybe they’re anti-female, maybe it’s someone that doesn’t want a woman in the race,” she said with a short laugh. “Well, I’m not getting out of town and it’s not going to slow me down.”