LD39 Flashpoint: Bergen County Sign Wars
Listen to audio version of this article
MONTVALE, NJ – Things turned a little ugly when a video filmed by Assembly candidate John Birkner was posted online Monday. The video, about 34 seconds long, shows Birkner to be in conflict with a man in a goatee, accusing him of removing Democratic candidates’ signs. The man, according to Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi, is a campaign volunteer who was working with two kids, scared off by Birkner, and was removing the signs from private property being leased to the Schepisi and Auth campaigns when Birkner appeared. Birkner demanded to film the trunk of the man’s Hyundai, handling some of the signs within, which prompted the driver to shut the trunk.
Both parties accused the other of removing signs.
The Democrats released a statement charging incumbents Holly Schepisi and Robert Auth with “engaging in dishonest and juvenile campaign tactics as this competitive race enters its final days.” John Birkner described the Republicans as “running a deceitful campaign” and accusing them of calling the Democrats “knuckle-dragging cro-magnons”. Birkner said in the statement that “just this weekend, we caught a crew of their volunteers red-handed on camera stealing our lawn signs.”
Falotico added, “We strive every day to run the best, cleanest, most honest campaign we can. It has been incredibly disappointing to see our opponents resort to name-calling, to lying, and now to actual theft.”
“John Birkner improperly placed signs on our Campaign Headquarters’ private property,” the Schepisi and Auth campaigns responded in a statement. “He then trespassed and verbally assaulted several of our campaign volunteers, including two who were minors. Unlike our opponents we understand the law, and the difference between public and private property. John Birkner has a well-documented history of verbally assaulting others in the community, including the former Police Chief’s wife in Westwood.”
Assemblywoman Schepisi told Insider NJ that it was “bizarre” and John Birkner “was getting into one of our kid’s faces and scaring two kids under the age of 18.”
“Our new campaign headquarters is private corporate property,” she said. “Our kids were putting up our signs on our property and saw there were some signs from our opponents. All of the sudden, it was like he was stalking the premises and he jumps out of a car with his camera and chases the kids up to our private driveway, goes into the kid’s trunk. Two of the kids were underage and got very upset. He was just ranting and raving at them.”
Schepisi said she was not present at the time of the incident, but saw the video shortly after it appeared online. “Everything is about context and he sent that video around to a whole bunch of people trying to get them to bite on it. Nobody would bite on it because they asked, where was this taken? I was with the owner of the property when the article popped up and I showed it to him, he said ‘that’s my property, I didn’t give him permission to put signs on my property’. We’re in the stupid, silly season now.”
The cameraman is clearly violating the law in the video by searching through the trunk and moving objects within it without the other individuals permission. He has thus committed the tort, of “trespass to chattels”.
Seems there is wrong on both sides here. Birkner was aggressive in his assertion that the car owner had signs in his possession that do not belong to him.
OTOH, unless I read the situation incorrectly, the trunk had signs in it that clearly do not belong to the owner of the car. Please correct my understanding if the car’s owner actually owns the dem signs he has in his car.
If I see my property in someone else’s possession is it against the law for me to reach towards that property and attempt to retrieve it? Who knows, these day it could be illegal to try and get my property back from someone who took it……
——–
It is sad that this is the type of story that gets reported rather than a full discussion of the positions and records of the incumbents and the candidates that are challenging them. There is too much press coverage of the ‘sizzle’ of confrontations like this and way too little attention placed on issues that actually matter.
The signs were posted on PRIVATE property, specifically on the property of the GOP Headquarters in Montvale. They have every right to take down some elses signs that were put on their property without consent.
Were they actually posted on private property or did Birkner confront
the guy in the parking lot of the place the GOP folks rented? If they
were posted there then they should be removed. If they were taken down
elsewhere then they should be returned.
_________
Either way, it is a shame that this type of thing gets coverage on sites like
this while candidate records and stands on the issues are largely
ignored.
________
I did notice you making the following comment on another article on this site:
“Anyone with a brain can look at those pictures and see more than 3 crew people. Nice try democRATS”
I could not tell from the pics in the article that there were more
than 3 crew people. I see Birkner and Falotico, but no one who could be
considered ‘film crew’ in the main pic. Perhaps there were other pics I missed that
had more than 2 film crew folks in them, but I did not see them. Maybe
they broke the ordinance, but the pics in the article do not confirm
that they did…
Also, using hot button put downs like ‘democRATS’ seems like angry rhetoric rather than thoughtful discussion. As with every group, there are bad dems and OK dems. Just sayin….
What the story didn’t say is that Birkner verbally harassed this young man on the GOP HQ property. Not a good look for an Assemblyman wannabe.
If anything John Birkner comes off as a thug in this video. Harassing a minor? And this guy wants to represent us in the legislature? Ill pass.