H-312                _______________________________________________

                                                   HOUSE BILL NO. 1543

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                               51st Legislature                              1989 Regular Session

By Representatives Nutley, Silver, Leonard, R. Fisher, Beck, Jacobsen, Anderson, Wang, Pruitt, Todd and Winsley

Read first time 1/27/89 and referred to Committee on State Government.

AN ACT Relating to political signs; and adding a new section to chapter 46.61 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 46.61 RCW to read as follows:

          No person may erect or maintain upon the right of way of any highway, as defined in RCW 46.04.030, a political sign for or against a candidate for elective office or a ballot proposition.  The governmental agency owning the right of way on which such a political sign is erected shall remove and store the sign.  If the sign contains the name of the sponsor of the political advertisement, the agency shall mail a written notice to the sponsor.  The notice shall advise the sponsor that the sign may be recovered, upon the payment of a reasonable fee, within ten days of the date the notice was postmarked and during regular business hours.  The notice shall be sent within five days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, of the day the sign was removed.  Such a fee shall be in an amount established by the agency to cover the cost of removing the sign and providing the notice and shall be not less than five dollars.  Any such political sign that has not been retrieved within ten days of the date the notice was postmarked, or that has been removed by the agency but is not marked so as to identify the likely sponsor of the advertisement, is hereby declared to be abandoned and shall be promptly destroyed by the agency.