DRAPER — When Draper resident Mark Towner drove home last Wednesday night, he was surprised to see that all of his campaign signs for a spot on the State School Board had been removed. He was even more surprised the next day when he found more than half of his 100 signs piled in the back of a Draper city truck parked behind City Hall.

Towner later learned from city officials that his signs had been removed because they violated a city campaign sign ordinance. Towner, who had not been notified of his violation, said his signs were removed from both public and private properties.

The incident spurred the American Civil Liberties Union to file a lawsuit Tuesday asking for a restraining order to block Draper's election sign ordinance saying it is unconstitutional. The suit claims Draper's code violates free speech rights by prohibiting campaign signs on both public and private property more than 30 days before an election. The code, however, allows candidates who put up signs for a primary election to keep their signs up from June primaries until the Nov. 2 finals.

Two residents who wanted to erect campaign signs in their yards and Ken Larsen, a People's Choice Party candidate for governor, are the plaintiffs in the suit, which names the Draper City Council and Mayor Darrell Smith as defendants.

Margaret Plane, staff attorney for the ACLU, said the 2004 ordinance denies residents the right to free speech on their own property.

"Individuals have a right to free speech, and that right is particularly important when it concerns someone speaking from their own homes," Plane said.

Although Plane said many Salt Lake County cities have similar time limits on campaign signs, the ACLU chose to file suit against Draper because its 30-day time limit was particularly egregious.

Council member Bill Colbert, a defendant in the suit, said the actual time limit is 45 days before the election, but the code has not been updated to reflect that recent change. Colbert also said the code only refers to signs on public property, not on private land.

But the code never mentions that, Plane said. In fact, a segment of the city's sign code about private, residential signage has a reference to the segment with the 30-day limitation. Moreover, even if the code truly only imposes a 45-day limit, Plane said any time restraint on free speech is unconstitutional.

"It's simply a bad code that needs to be fixed," she said.

The second flaw in the code, Plane said, is that it gives an unfair advantage to candidates who ran in a primary and so can leave their signs up until November. That means candidates who run in June primaries get a four-month campaigning head start over candidates who do not have to run in a primary election.