Town of Hanson, MA Goes Crazy Over Resident’s ‘Trump 2024’ Projection on Water Tower
“Officials said the resident will be fined $100 per day until the projection is discontinued.”
A resident of Hanson, Massachusetts, a small town south of Boston, decided to project ‘Trump 2024’ onto a local water tower and people are losing their minds. The town is using high powered spotlights to prevent people from seeing the projection and is planning to fine the resident $100 per night if he continues projecting the image.
Does anyone think this would be such a problem if a Harris supporter did this?
WHDH News reports:
Town of Hanson to fine resident projecting Trump 2024 sign onto water tower
A Hanson resident has been projecting a Trump 2024 sign onto a municipal water tower, which officials have denounced as a violation of town bylaws.
On Friday, town officials learned that a local resident was projecting the political sign from their property onto the water tower at 228 High St., according to Town Administrator Lisa Green.
Officials are currently working on a cease and desist order for the resident, as such statements are not allowed on town property, she said.
“This misleads the public into believing that this activity is sanctioned by or condoned by the Town,” Green said in a statement. “As a governmental entity, the Town of Hanson does not endorse candidates for any office from any political party, nor does the Town allow political signs to be displayed on municipal property.”
Highway Department employees have been shining spotlights on the water tower to dim the projection, the statement said.
The lights have been keeping Hanson resident Patrick Croghan up at night, as he lives directly across the street from the water tower.
“The generators have been keeping us up at night. They’ve been really loud, and that’s been more of a problem in my eyes,” Croghan said.
He said he thought the sign itself, however, was humorous.
“I thought it was ingenious and laughed and got a kick out of it, but I can understand the town not wanting it up there, 100 percent, just because it is a political thing,” Croghan said.
Officials said the resident will be fined $100 per day until the projection is discontinued.
I can understand the concern that this appears to be an endorsement by the town, but there is an ironic twist to that.
FUN FACT: The Massachusetts town of Hanson, which is now fighting a resident who is projecting a pro-Trump image onto a water tower, VOTED FOR TRUMP in 2020. pic.twitter.com/QBqC2dleHW
— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) October 15, 2024
This video report from NBC News in Boston includes comments from a man who lives near the tower. He seems more annoyed by the town’s response than the projection itself.
This Twitter/X user went to the location of the tower when the spotlights showed up and provided a humorous independent report. He notes that some local news outlets even avoided using the word ‘Trump’ in their reportage:
I'm here in Hanson where the Town has just turned on the generators and four giant spot lights to prevent you from seeing the Trump 2024 logo on the Hanson water tower. #mapoli #Trump #hansonwatertower pic.twitter.com/LhOeWr3xhX
— JohnFGately (@johnfgately) October 13, 2024
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Running generators.. what about global warming and the impact on climate change? /S
Not to mention the noise all night long.
Yep and let’s not minimize the ‘light pollution’.
Generators running in anti-Trump mode are non-polluting
Yet if it had been a Harris sign in support of the Communists they probably would have been perfectly fine with it.
No, they would not. This is a Republican town; the town administration should be presumed to reflect the population’s sentiments. They’re acting this way because they feel they have to. The town, as a town, can’t be partisan, even if the person ordering this intends to vote for Trump.
Having spent some time in Hanson in the past I can say with almost perfect certainty that the chances of someone there winning a Nobel Prize in the near future is pretty much nil, if you know what I mean.
And if the town fathers had kept their mouths closed and ignored this rather creative use of the first amendment they wouldn’t be getting this attention right now and wouldn’t be running up a tab with their attorneys.
Obviously, they’ve never heard of the Streisand Effect.
Streisand effect.
Perfect anology
I’d like to meet this guy.
There is at least one resident capable of creative thinking. More qualified to win the Nobel than Obama.
Yeah, let’s also talk about the GiveSendGo Effect.
$100/day? Peanuts, but get it crowdfunded anyway.
Plus, you don’t have to claim it to the FEC.
Wow, I’ve been getting “Cloudflared” by LI about every other comment today. I’ve never had LI validate me before… today, it must be in heat!
I’m getting that on a couple of sites now for some reason. Powerline does it every time I go there. Must be getting spammed like crazy
It’s not a use of the first amendment. The first amendment protects your right to put up a sign on your property, not the town’s property. If it did protect a right to project a sign onto someone else’s property then Desantis’s law making it a crime to do so without the owner’s consent would be unconstitutional. A law that, if I recall correctly, everyone here (except our token leftists) supported when it was passed.
On what law, exactly? Is there a projection law in Hanson or in Massachusetts?
The law should apply to all who project light, including flashlights.
😉
Their politicians have been projecting for years.
Article says it is a “town bylaw.” You can put all sorts of crap in town bylaws, and it almost never gets called out.
Out my way, the first bylaw (ordinance) passed by the Town of WIckenburg, in 1909, was, “Women shall not appear in men’s clothing in public, & vice versa.”
The law is vandalism. I don’t know whether MA has a specific law about this, as Florida does, but even without that it’s vandalism.
It’s not on the water tower. There’s nothing on the water tower.
Obi-Wan Kenobi has entered the chat.
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark.
He’s right. The man is literally bouncing photons off the surface of the paint on the tower. The stream of photons is continuous (if you consider them “waves” rather than “particles,” but let’s not get into that), so it gives the impression to a viewer (an optical illusion) that there’s something “on” the tower. There is not. The photons hit the tower and they bounce off, along with every other photon that hits the tower and makes it visible. A certain number of all the photons that strike the tower are absorbed by the atoms in the paint. Those photons are no more. They aren’t “on” the tower either.
Let’s see them bring evidence into court that there was “something” on the water tower. The citizen made no physical contact with the tower in any way. The tower has not been defaced. Can someone stand on the steps of city hall with a placard or sign? How about the sidewalk (public property). Certainly. The man’s sign is his projector. When he turns it off, the property hasn’t been injured in any way. He almost certainly has a right to make his opinion known to the public in any manner that doesn’t harm public property or disturb the peace/disrupt public order. The attempt by the city to reduce the visibility of the message may, itself, by a violation of the man’s rights.
The citizen who is projecting this fine message onto the tower may end up owning the town, if he cares to, via a good lawyer prosecuting under violation of civil rights laws. 1st amendment anyone? Luv to see progressive town leaders make asses of themselves in these cases. Just sayin’.
No, he would not. He would lose the case. I don’t think you were commenting here when Desantis got the Florida legislature to pass a law specifically banning exactly this, but everyone here approved of it.
If they were to paint it with non-reflective paint they could then bend the laws of physics.
The water tower is merely reflecting photons from an outside source.
they should let him project it and let Harris people project during the daytime…
Fair is fair.
The spotlights are like shouting someone down because you don’t like what he’s saying.
Let a Harris supporter project on the other side of the water tower and we’re done, right?
As long as the photon forces cancel themselves out. Unbalanced photon streams could cause the tank to fall over.
See: Guam effect.
Hank Johnson, is that you?
Harris gets December.
This seems like a clear government attempt to violate the first amendment. I say sue them, it would be funny if he received a mind numbing award.
No, it doesn’t. There is no first amendment right to project a message onto someone else’s property. It’s up to the property owner, and the town as a town can’t consent to such a thing.
I read that a ‘go fund me’… one of the free-speech alternatives, forget the name, had popped up and already raised more than enough money for him to pay the fines through election day.
Just what the lefties hate: American ingenuity.
This has been litigated in several jurisdictions. From what I gather, courts have looked dimly on attempts to stop these ‘protest projections’ (or in this case, projections of support) at least on the basis of trespass. A union in NV sued to have a projection stopped on its building
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/17/is-projecting-a-message-onto-the-wall-of-a-building-a-trespass-a-nuisance/
…and the trespass argument didn’t fly. The court was more amenable to a nuisance argument, which makes sense considered some people working in the building could be bothered by the excess light. But, how much of a ‘nuisance’ is it to project a slogan on an uninhabited water tower?
I do foresee a court case in the future unless the town bylaw does exist and the penalty is codified already.
However, I’m not sure this is a precedent I would want to set as an allowance. It was a funny prank in its own right, but don’t underestimate the obnoxious potential of lefty cultists to go to the next step.
Looked “dimly”? A light pun?
Even if the town has an bylaw on the books, and I seriously doubt that, wouldn’t this be a freedom of political speech issue? How is this different from putting out campaign signs on street corners in the city which are town property.
And which you have no right to do, and if the town catches you they will fine you. If the signs come from the campaign, they will often threaten to fine the campaign unless it removes the signs and tells people not to put them there.
If this was in a swing state it might be worth it for the Trump campaign to pony up the $100/day.
Love to see this spread to other towns!
This reminds me of the Florence Mall advertising on a water tower in northern KY outside of Cincinnati. It was changed to “Florence Y’all” due to advertising restrictions on public property and is somewhat of an icon you can see when traveling on I-71.
I see a legal challenge here. So can your house lights project images? That Santa Claus can be seen from the street. Since there is no code restrictions to project, they might have a fun legal challenge.
So do those lights like dots that people project on their house constitute an illegal project if their light leaves their property?
The townsfolk should be happy he’s not projecting porn on the tower.
No big deal, it is in the library and the school.
I’m sure the gist of the bylaw is that the political advertising is taking place on municipal property. Same as if you erected campaign signs on the town hall lawn, or on the street right of way
Maybe but then the question of historical enforcement or uneven enforcement arises. Usually the local tyrants fold when they meet someone prepared to go to court over their stunt b/c the tyrants have been relying upon ‘this is the way we’ve always done it’ sorts of excuses despite it being contrary to State law. Sometimes the tyrants get stubborn and dig in their heels despite their attorneys telling them they gonna get hammered b/c they can’t convince of being forced to climb down.
But I see political signs on municipal property all the time. I’m sure the guys lawyers will show about 1,000 pictures of such signs if this goes to court.
Any such signs you see are illegal, and towns generally make at least some effort to stop them. They can’t stop them completely, but they certainly don’t approve them, and they do act against flagrant violators. Often they contact the campaign that produced and distributed the signs, and tell it to tell its supporters to cut it out.
Any one remember the Black Live Matter insanity. Tons of municipal offices and govt. funded places had these signs everywhere. Isn’t BLM heavily politically left? No whining then.
In all the instances I’m aware of it was the town itself putting up the BLM signs, which it’s entitled to do if it wants to. But a town can’t put up partisan political signs, supporting or opposing candidates for office; nor do towns generally allow others to do so on their property.
I just want to know what model projector could do this.,, heh heh heh.
It has to be a laser projection to get such intensity.
Shouldn’t the cease and desist order, citing the city code violated, come before they start the fines?
It surely did.
when asked what if blm was shown
the town responded:
well blm would torch our town if we said anything and the odds are they wouldnt be prosecuted or maybe a slap on the wrist
Where do I send my $100?
Working on a cease and desist order. Could it be there isn’t an ordinance against such shenanigans?
So they’re having to fluff something up (humor intended if you know about fluffing) for the democrat party?
Speaking of Trump campaign posters, it occurred to me only today why Trump chose Vance for his VP.
He could get away with changing only two letters on his lawn signs.
“You can’t stop the signal, Mal.”
~ Mr. Universe, “Serenity”
Not permitted to shine bright lights on other persons property. But if this was BLM display, or gay pride display, the lefties would all be supporting it as free speech.
What the left might or might not support is irrelevant. The law remains the same regardless of what leftists say or do. And we’re not discussing leftists here. There’s no indication the town administration is leftist.
As I recall, a number of leftists have been projecting various political and offensive statements against the Trump hotel in DC (or NY, unsure of which). How does this compare to that in terms of legal response? (i.e. are the leftists being fined too?)
Harder to prove when it’s not all in the same town with the same ordinance.
NY certainly doesn’t allow it. Maybe DC does.
MAGA is the new “punk.”
He should rotate the message with a GOFUNDME to fight city hall!
Or maybe an unflattering picture of Kamala Harris?
Or “Make Hanson Great Again!”
Florida Statutes, 806.13 (7):
(7) A person may not knowingly and intentionally display or project, using any medium, an image onto a building, structure, or other property without the written consent of the owner of the building, structure, or property. For purposes of this subsection, the term “image” means a visual representation or likeness of a person or object, including text, graphics, logos, other artwork, or any combination thereof.
(a) A person who violates this subsection commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
(b) A person who violates this subsection by displaying or projecting an image that contains a credible threat, as that term is defined in s. 784.048(1), commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
(c) If the penalty for a violation of this subsection is reclassified under s. 775.085, such a violation is considered a hate crime for purposes of the reporting requirements of s. 877.19.
The Florida law I cited above, assuming it to be constitutional, shows that projecting a message on someone else’s property without their consent is not protected speech. If FL calls it vandalism, then MA can do the same.
I see absolutely no reason to suppose otherwise, nor have you given any such reason. The town administration, having been hired by the selectmen who are elected by the people, can be expected to reflect, more or less, the people’s sentiments, especially in such a small town. And the majority of those people are probably sympathetic to the message being projected, and would be less sympathetic to a Harris message being projected instead. So we should not assume without evidence that the town administrator would act otherwise. Generalizing from other government entities is no different from generalizing about one black person from other black people.