Lynn neighbors battle over political signs

LYNN – First there was one lawn sign. Then came big signs, Christmas lights, a spotlight, and now allegations of vandalism, trespassing, complaints to police and property lines re-examined. It appears political season has officially begun.”I’m fearful about what next is going to happen,” B Street resident Holly Shorten said on Thursday. Shorten was sitting on the front steps of her home and pointing at a large “Tim Phelan for Mayor” sign perched on the stone wall at the edge of her front lawn. An equally large “Judy Flanagan Kennedy” for Mayor sign was hanging on the fence on the other side of Shorten’s driveway and facing her home. “They’ve done everything out of spite ? It’s been very upsetting to me, as you can tell. It’s the crazy season.”But her neighbor, John Krol, said he has always had political signs on his property, including in that location. Both the Shortens and the Krols say the sign on the fence is on their own properties, respectively. He said he never had a problem with the signs until he and the Shortens supported different candidates.”Four years ago I had signs at that corner of the yard and now all of a sudden there’s a problem, and she’s the one that has it,” Krol said.Holly Shorten said tension between her and Krol began three years ago when Krol was holding a Republican Party picnic and asked her not to speak to Kennedy about a lawsuit in which Shorten was involved against the city.Shorten won the lawsuit, and got her job back in the School Department. Since then, Shorten said Krol – appointed by Kennedy to the city License Commission – has insinuated through comments over the fence that he supports Kennedy and others who opposed Shorten in the lawsuit. She said the comments make her feel her job once again might be in jeopardy.Krol said he asked Shorten not to come to the party because there were several guests with whom Shorten had disagreements. He denied ever making antagonizing, over-the-fence comments, but said Shorten had made them to him.In fact, Krol said the current fence was something he put up more than a year ago because of problems with Shorten. He acknowledged there had never been a political sign on the fence before, but said the previous fence was a 3-foot high picket fence that would not support a sign.This week, however, the signs went up.The Phelan campaign Saturday put up two small signs for Phelan and another sign on the Shorten lawn. This year’s Republican picnic happened to be that day at the Krols’. That night, Shorten said the Krols put small Kennedy signs and another sign in the corner by the fence.The big Phelan sign on Shorten’s lawn was put up Monday, and was decorated with Christmas lights, Shorten said.She said the Krols put a spotlight on the big Kennedy sign on their lawn and hung the big Kennedy sign on the fence – a “spite sign,” according to Shorten – that evening.”It’s in our face, in our driveway,” Shorten said. Shorten said Krol told her husband the sign was “deliberately there to aggravate me.”Krol denied ever saying “anything like that.”Shorten said things came to a head, however, when she came home on Tuesday evening and found one Phelan sign broken and the lights removed from the large Phelan sign. She blames Krol and she called the police.Krol denied the allegations of trespassing and vandalism.”To say in broad daylight I’d go over to pull lights down and rip signs off a front lawn ? that’s ridiculousness,” Krol said. He said a neighbor’s surveillance camera had captured, and he had seen, two teenage boys ripping up signs from multiple candidates in the neighborhood that night. “No one ever asked me to remove the sign like an adult would, instead the police were involved.”Shorten said she was so angry Tuesday night when she returned home she said “Take that sign down,” and people in the backyard of the Krols’ house were hysterically laughing.Since then, Shorten said, “The neighborhood is up in arms.”Indeed, a neighbor anonymously informed The Item about the di