Kenneth Avery can read the signs, and he doesn't like what he sees.
The associate pastor at Antioch Fellowship Church has picked up almost 3,000 plastic signs that were illegally placed on corners and right-of-ways in his South Dallas neighborhood. The signs push everything from cars to babysitters to tax help.
Avery said the signs end up crushed or torn up in yards and in the street.
"They're trash, eventually," he said. "They come to cut the weeds and the grass, (and) all they do is lay the signs down on the ground. And that's trash."
Avery said he has called more than 50 of the phone numbers on the signs, hoping the owners would either stop planting the signs or come to pick them up.
"They don't give an answer," he said. "Some hang up."
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According to the Dallas City Code dealing with signs, it's a violation to hang signs on utility posts, trees, lamps posts, public structures or in the right-of-way or median. The rule applies to garage-sale signs, too.
Dallas spokesman Frank Librio said fines can run from $250 to $2,000.
City officials said code enforcers do periodic sweeps, but can't get all the signs in all the neighborhoods.
But Avery said he's not happy with the city's response time -- especially because he sees city sanitation vehicles and code cars driving past them.
"Someone is getting paid to do this job. They're just not doing it," he said. "Hire me -- I'll do it for free. Just give me permission to go in certain places and all over the city, but we need to get it done, and we'll pull a team together to get it taken care of."
Avery said the sign clutter makes Dallas look bad.
"I don't want to come home and see all these things," he said. "It would not happen in Highland Park. It will not happen in Highland Park. But this area -- still a clean area -- but they will strategically plan where they would place these signs."
A mound of roughly 2,000 signs collected by Avery was picked up late Friday afternoon.
But Librio said that, too, is a violation.
While the city appreciates Avery's intentions, it's a violation to set out trash for pickup that was not generated on an owner's property, Librio said. He said the proper thing to do is take the signs to the landfill.
But Avery said he's going to keep putting the signs in the trash.
"You keep putting them down, I'll keep picking them up," he said.
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