According to the Ector County Sheriff’s Office, a 79-year-old woman who was upset a political sign for a Democrat had been posted near FM 1936 and 16th Street was cited Wednesday for theft of property after having it removed.
According to an ECSO report, Savannah Morales, who is the Democrat nominee for Ector County Commissioner in Precinct 4, called ECSO and told them somebody gave her video of people from two vehicles taking a campaign sign down near that intersection.
A deputy found one of the vehicles at a location on West 20th and the man at that location told him that Barbara Jones told him to remove a sign because the owner of the sign had not done so despite being told to, the report stated.
When contacted on the phone, Jones told the deputy she’d contacted the property owner, Rene Molinar, and asked him why he had a Democrat sign on his property, according to the report. She further stated Molinar told her to remove the sign.
Jones further stated she’d contacted the Republican party to tell them what was going on and Mayor Javier Joven informed her he’d tell Morales to stop placing signs on property without permission.
Jones told the deputy she never told Morales she was having the sign removed because she assumed Joven had already contacted her, the report stated.
Jones was informed that “the mayor had no control of anything outside of the city limits,” the report stated.
Joven did not respond to an email sent to him Thursday.
A further investigation revealed the sign Jones had in her possession and a second sign that had been stolen from the same area had both been placed on state land and not private property as Jones claimed, according to the report.
An investigator went to Jones’ home on Wednesday and while there he located the second vehicle seen in the video, according to the report.
Jones removed a sign from the back of her van, gave it to the deputy and she was cited for theft of property, a Class C misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500.
In a phone interview Thursday, Morales said signs belonging to her opponent, Republican Billy Hall, were placed in the same location where her stolen signs had been.
Having worked for the county, Morales said she knows she can only place signs in public right of ways and on private property where she has permission. The stolen signs were on public right of way.
She has had at least one other sign stolen, Morales said.
“I think this is the Republican Party acting crazy,” Morales said.
Morales said she never received a call from Joven, but Ector County Republican Party Chairwoman Tisha Crow informed her chairperson that she could expect to have more signs “lawfully confiscated” if she continued to put them on private property.
