(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Village officials in Glencoe defended the removal of signs posted around town in support of the hostages taken by Hamas in Israel.
The signs, with the names and pictures of some of those taken hostage, were posted on lampposts and were quickly removed by the village.
It was unclear who put them up. Resident Mark Stern took issue, and he said as much at a meeting of the Village Board.
“I guess my question to Glencoe is, ‘Where is the moral compass when signs supporting cruelly abducted Americans are not to be displayed in public?’” he said.
A Glencoe ordinance prohibits signs in the public way. As the Village goes about enforcing that ordinance, Village Attorney Steven Elrod said officials “cannot exercise a moral compass.”
“You cannot look at the content,” he said. “You can either allow it altogether or prohibit it altogether.”
Stern noted that in 2020 there were chalk messages on sidewalks supporting Black Lives Matter, some of which, he said, were “quite vile.”
He said the Village had no problem with those signs.
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