Last night and today, I posted here and here about the City of Knoxville removing signs along Northshore Drive. I reached out to Public Services Director Chad Weth and to his credit, he responded with a very in-depth response. Here it is,
I actually received a telephone complaint yesterday about the area of Northshore and Lyons Bend. A customer said it was becoming a nuisance and was causing a bit of a sight distance issue. I live that direction and actually drove by it myself and agreed with the caller. Based on this, I asked the signs along Northshore to be collected due to this complaint.
Please understand that there is no political affiliation to me or my staff in any way, but signs within the ROW on a City street is a violation of our Ordinance. When our second shift staff has time, one of their tasks is to collect signs on the ROW. Although still a violation, we do not police signs in neighborhood areas. But main routes such as Northshore, Kingston Pike, Chapman, etc. would become quite an eyesore if they were not removed from time to time. And again this is not just political signs, but all signs.
We try to be flexible during political season, but in this case public safety is most important. I have attached our policy to this email. If you have any other questions, please feel free to call me at either number below. Thank you.
For all political candidates and your signs team, here is the City of Knoxville policy.
City of Knoxville political sign policy
