Eastside House candidate's removal of signs leads to complaint

This is what no one disputes in the latest tale of fall campaign high jinks: Eastside legislative candidate Deb Eddy on Monday had campaign volunteers pull up a large number of opposition yard signs that she said were illegal and misleading.

The King County Republican Party, which put up the signs, says Eddy committed misdemeanor theft by stealing the signs — and the party filed a complaint with Bellevue police Thursday.

Eddy, a Democrat and former Kirkland mayor, is running against Republican Bret Olson for a House seat in the 48th District, which covers parts of Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland. The signs were put up late Friday and referred to a Web site called debeddyspropertytax.com and said: "She wants to raise your taxes."

The Web site, also put up by the Republican Party, claims that Eddy would support an increase of the local real-estate excise tax. She says she has no opinion on the tax.

Eddy said the yard signs included no indication of who paid for them, which she says is required by state law, and were an improper use of her name. She had her volunteers take them down Monday and then e-mailed county Republicans, whom she suspected of installing the signs, and told them she had the signs at her Kirkland home if they wanted them back.

She said she did not hear anything until Republicans put out a news release Thursday about the removal of the signs.

"I was nothing but honest and forthright," she said.

The county Republicans say the theft broke the law, and that it is legal to post signs without an indication of sponsorship.

Tony Perkins, political finance specialist for the State Public Disclosure Commission, agrees it is legal to post yard signs without attribution.

Republican leaders say they lost hundreds of volunteer hours on the 500 signs they installed, most of which they say are gone. Eddy says she has about 100 signs.

"She took them and that's the bottom line," said Ross Marzolf, executive director of the county Republican Party. "That's illegal."

Eddy, an attorney, said she did not commit theft under state law because she told the Republicans she took the signs and had no intent to deprive them of their property.

Republicans say they may come to Eddy's home today to pick up the signs.

Staff reporters Sonia Krishnan and Peyton Whitely contributed to this report.

Ashley Bach: 206-464-2567 or abach@seattletimes.com