Rumors have it that the race for the new state senate District #32 has devolved into a war, not of issues or candidate style, but of campaign signs.

The first seven photos to the right are a series of stills taken from a video camera looking outside at a sign location for Tain Kell. You can see a white van drive-up, and a woman of stout proportions with a short hairstyle disembark from the van and proceed to take-up every Kell sign that was placed. She then loads them in her car and drives off.

Now, coincidentally, rumors have it that a woman of similar build, similar bearing, and similar hairstyle happened to show-up in public recently. She attended last week's Fulton County BBQ. Rumors are that she was wearing a T-shirt...a yellow-and-white one...with a BIG white checkmark on it.

The bottom two photos are evidence of what happens when one cannot uproot a sign; they take a razor blade and slice-out the letters of a 4' x 8' sign as they see fit...anything to prevent someone from seeing the signs.

It should be noted that in the act of razor-cutting the Kell sign shown in front of Robert Lamutt's, Debra Bernes', and Judson "Scudson" Hill's in the background, they ignored the Hill sign.

One would think that if you're on Mitchell Kaye's team, you would go ahead and takeout all of your opponents' signs, right? Both Kell and Hill signs should have been sliced. But they weren't. Which leads our amateur detective team to conclude that, by reason of omission, supporters of Judson Hill would be the likely suspects in this razoring of Kell's 4' x 8' signs.

Coincidentally enough (yet again, those nagging Columbo-like coincidences), Judson Hill's campaign manager is a guy by the name of Andrew Claxton. During the 2002 Barr-Linder race, Claxton was a paid consultant to Bob Barr. In one of the frequent "yard-sign-smash-and-grab" outings by the Barr-nuts, Claxton was caught on tape kicking-down Linder signs.

Now, to those of you who may be thinking that stealing and vandalizing campaign signs is a big yawn of a story and other "oh, that's just silly!" reactions, the fact is, signs cost money. Four by eight signs cost between $30-$50 each just for the sign, and then there's the erection wood and hardware, and, of course, the manpower necessary to erect them.

But, the important part here is the cost of the signs themselves. That is where laws on "property ownership" come into play here. Stealing or vandalizing campaign signs carry fines of up to $1000 and/or one year in jail, and...here's the salient point...it is a per sign count if you are caught. That means the woman caught on tape stealing signs can be fined-up to $3000 for three counts of a misdemeanor.

Pretty hefty fine for engaging in petty theft, wouldn't you folks think? Perhaps people DON'T think anymore is the problem.

We don't know who is doing all of the sign crap in the Cobb County District 32 race. But, the Tain Kell campaign has come-up with a solution that might work: they are offering a reward for information leading to the ones responsible for theft and destruction of Tain's signs. You can e-mail us with your information or go to Tain Kell's Website and contact him directly if you have information.