Retzer Avenue Campaign Signs Reach 'Visibility Hazard' Density, Resident Says

WAUKESHA — Harold Finch, 78, walked the four blocks of Retzer Avenue between Grand and North twice last weekend with a golf pencil and a church bulletin, and came back with a number: 54 campaign signs for the governor's race, a density he calculates at roughly three signs for every residential mailbox on the stretch.

Finch, a 34-year resident of the street, said the count started as a curiosity and ended as a grievance. "I've lived here since 1992, and I've never seen anything like it. It's getting hard to find the mail," he said, standing at the corner of Retzer and Oakdale, where a single vacant lot hosts three duplicate signs for the same candidate, stapled to two fence posts and driven into a drainage easement.

The count

Finch's tally, recorded in the margins of an Our Lady Queen of Peace bulletin from September 20, breaks down the signage by surface: 21 in residential yards, 14 on utility poles, 9 on vacant lots, 6 zip-tied to a single guardrail near the Grand Avenue end, and 4 that he could not assign to any adjacent property, including one wedged into a storm grate.

He said the exercise took one hour and forty minutes across two passes, with the second pass added after he suspected, correctly, that someone had added six more signs overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday.

With the November election four weeks out, Finch said the signage has begun to obscure two things he uses to navigate the street without looking: a reflective house-number placard at 814 Retzer, and the fire hydrant marker flag at the Oakdale corner, both now flanked on either side by placards roughly the same height.

What the ordinance says

The City of Waukesha's sign ordinance limits campaign signage to one per candidate per property and restricts placement in the public right-of-way, including utility poles and drainage easements. A spokesperson for the city's planning department, Renata Kowalczyk, said enforcement works on a complaint basis rather than routine patrol.

"We don't have staff driving the wards counting signs. If a resident files a complaint with an address and a photo, we send a letter within five business days," Kowalczyk said. She confirmed the department has received zero formal removal requests tied to Retzer Avenue as of Tuesday afternoon, a figure Finch called "the actual scandal" of the situation.

"If a resident files a complaint with an address and a photo, we send a letter within five business days."

— Renata Kowalczyk, City of Waukesha planning department

A councilman weighs in

Councilman Gary Puchalski, who represents a ward two streets over and said he has personally driven Retzer Avenue the long way to avoid a different ongoing dispute involving his own yard, called the enforcement gap structurally frustrating but not surprising.

"Nobody wants to be the guy who called the city on his neighbor's governor sign. That's a grudge that outlives the election," Puchalski said. He added that he has not personally counted the signs on Retzer but trusts Finch's math, calling him "thorough in a way I respect."

Finch said he does not plan to file a complaint himself, preferring to let the count stand as a public record. He has, however, laminated the bulletin and taped it to his refrigerator, dated and initialed, in case a second count is needed closer to Election Day.

"I'm not against anybody's candidate," Finch said. "I'm against not being able to see my own mailbox from my own porch."