By Lianne LeBel
A heated dispute over election signs in Somerset Ward early on in the campaign seems to have cooled.
Incumbent Coun. Diane Holmes and candidate George Guirguis had accused each other’s campaign of removing their signs.
However, the controversy has died down, at least for Holmes.
“The matter is resolved,” says Holmes. “We are not losing any more signs.”
But Guirguis says that as late as Oct. 17, 62 of his signs had gone missing over a period of five days.
“I am getting sick and tired of this political campaign. I’m really very disappointed. We should not put up with this,” says Guirguis. “But I will never stop it doesn’t matter how many signs they take down.”
Holmes says her campaign has experienced similar vandalism.
Some time after midnight on Oct. 5, she says, her assistant, Jeff Keays, was on the balcony of his apartment at the corner of Bronson Avenue and Lisgar Street when he saw a car drive up and remove the Diane Holmes sign on his front lawn.
“[Keays] identified Mr. Guirguis as the culprit,” says Holmes. She says her assistant also took a photograph of Guirguis with one of her signs.
Guirguis has a very different version of that story.
He says it was after midnight and he was campaigning by Bronson Avenue and Lisgar Street when several youths approached him with a large Diane Holmes sign.
He says they threw the sign at him and then began heckling him and photographing him with the sign.
Guirguis says that he also saw Holmes’ assistant take a photograph of the incident.
“I think they do it because I have lots of feedback and response from the community and now [the constituents] want to vote for me,” says Guirguis. “She will lose the election because I’ve been campaigning so hard.”
Both candidates filed complaints with the police following the incident.
A spokesperson for the Ottawa Police Department had no comment, but Guirguis says his case has been closed.
The conflict over signs between the two candidates did not end there. Another incident several days later, on Oct. 7, led to another complaint from Guirguis that Holmes’ volunteers were taking down his signs.
Guirguis says that he saw a woman who he says is a volunteer for Holmes, take down four of his signs in a Somerset Street restaurant and replaced them with a large Holmes sign in the window. Guirguis says he pursued her to ask her why she took down his signs. He says the woman denied taking any sign down.
Holmes says that neither she, nor any of her volunteers, have taken down any other candidate’s signs.
The City of Ottawa released a public service announcement Oct. 13 saying that stealing or vandalizing campaign signs is a criminal offence.
City of Ottawa spokesperson Eric Collard. says the city has received “only a handful” of complaints regarding stolen or vandalized signs. Somerset is not the only ward with signage disputes; however, there is no particular neighbourhood that suffers more theft and vandalism of signs than another, according to Collard.
Somerset Ward’s other candidates have not reported problems with signs being removed.