Councilmember Diane Goddeeris, running for a second term on the council, came up with the idea and approached her three opponents to see what they thought.

Candidates Beverly Baten and Roger Peters supported the idea, while Nathan Triplett said he wanted to go his own way and use lawn signs.

The three candidates will exercise alternative methods to advertise their campaigns by doing things such as visiting residents at their houses and advertising at indoor venues.

“This is the 100th anniversary of our community … and the election is right around the same time as homecoming,” Goddeeris said. “The visual blight of having the signs is really tough for me to see.”

Goddeeris, the council liaison to the environmental commission, said she’s never liked the signs but understands they’re effective campaign tools.

However, campaigning can be done in other ways, she said.

“Our community is small enough, and we have so many different venues to get our message out to our constituents,” Goddeeris said. “I feel very strongly, and I said right from the very beginning that I’m not doing yard signs.”

Triplett said he’s using lawn signs because many of his supporters have asked for them, and he wants to honor their requests.

“Lawn signs can be controversial, but the reality is they help educate residents that there is an important election upcoming,” he said.

This being East Lansing’s centennial year, running the campaign with no lawn signs would be an appropriate idea, Peters said.

“It’s an intriguing idea that would be an environmentally responsible way to run a campaign,” he said. “I’m going door-to-door and meeting with different groups and things like that, but I will not be using lawn signs.”

Triplett said he’s an advocate of environmental conservation and doesn’t believe lawn signs will cause blight n the city.

“Of all the resources that are used during a campaign, a lawn sign is the only truly renewable resource,” he said. “And what I mean by that is the lawn signs used in this election could be re-used four years from now, eight years and 12 years from now.”