MUKILTEO — Terry Preshaw makes no secret of her support for mayoral candidate Pat Smith.
After all, Smith’s campaign sign is planted in her front yard.
That’s why, she said, she was so surprised to discover early Wednesday that someone had bolted a sign support Mayor Joe Marine to the Smith sign.
The same thing happened at the home of city councilman Kevin Stoltz, another Smith supporter.
Preshaw, public relations chair for the city’s annual Lighthouse Festival, was so upset she told Mukilteo Police Chief Mike Murphy.
Word spread quickly. Marine got the, er, memo.
The incumbent mayor said Murphy approached him at City Hall and, in jest, said, “I’m going to have to arrest you.”
Smith said he thought the whole thing wasn’t worth getting “bent around the axle” over. Still, he added: “A true leader should not get caught up in such highjinks.”
Marine said he angrily phoned the responsible campaign workers and told them, “We can’t do that; that’s never a good idea.”
“I don’t ever touch an opponent’s sign,” Marine said last week. “It doesn’t make sense to put up a sign on property of someone who’s not a supporter. It’s just a waste of a sign.”
Preshaw got wind of the prank and realized she and Stoltz are friends with the admitted perpetrators.
She said she had to laugh about it once she knew it was supposed to be a joke.
“My first impulse was I was just going to rip that Joe Marine sign off,” she said. Instead, she drew a line through Marine’s name and wrote: “Do not elect Joe Marine.”
“I decided I’m going to keep it like that because it’s just funny,” Preshaw said. “I mean, it’s not like I went out of my way to get a Joe Marine sign and desecrate it, it was just given to me.”
Oscar Halpert: 425-339-3429; ohalpert@heraldnet.com.
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