The college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan — run entirely by Democrats — just finished ripping down more than 600 neighborhood watch signs across the city. The reason? Mayor Christopher Taylor says the signs are “expressions of exclusion.”
That’s right. “Don’t commit crimes in this neighborhood” was making criminals feel unwelcome. Can’t have that! What if a burglar walks by and thinks, “Gee, they don’t want me here”? Devastating. Truly heartbreaking stuff.
The city council voted 10-0 back in December to remove every single neighborhood watch sign in Ann Arbor. Unanimous. Not one council member said, “Hey, maybe telling people we’re watching out for criminals is… a good thing?” Not one. They allocated $18,000 from city cash reserves to get it done, and they wrapped up the removal by April 30th — right on schedule, because government is always efficient when the goal is making your neighborhood less safe.
The official resolution claimed the signs were “reinforcing race-based hyper-vigilance and suspicion particularly toward Black, Brown, and other marginalized residents.” So in the minds of Ann Arbor’s city council, a sign that says “Neighborhood Watch” is really a coded message about race. These people looked at a yellow sign with an eyeball on it and saw a hate crime.
(Remind me — who’s doing the racial profiling here? The sign, or the city council members who assume “criminal” means a specific race? Seems like a question worth asking.)
Councilwoman Jen Eyer, a Democrat — because of course she is — explained the vote by saying, “We don’t want our signage to message that they don’t belong.” Who is “they,” Jen? Law-abiding residents WANT to belong to a neighborhood that watches out for crime. The only people who “don’t belong” in a safe neighborhood are the people breaking into your car at 2 AM. Those people should absolutely feel unwelcome. That’s the whole point.
The city’s official justification also claimed that neighborhood watch programs are “defunct” and that the signage “does not reduce crime and can reinforce biased surveillance.” Biased surveillance. Of criminals. In your neighborhood. Where you live. With your family.
Welcome to clown world.
Former Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon nailed it: the city has reached “a new level of protecting the criminal over the community.” And NYC Council member Vickie Paladino, a Republican, summed up what every sane person in America is thinking: “They’re just insane.”
Conservative journalist Andy Ngo pointed out what we’re all seeing — this is what happens when a city government genuinely believes that “law and order are anti-black.” That’s not a conservative talking point. That’s literally the logical conclusion of Ann Arbor’s own resolution. They wrote it down. They voted on it. Unanimously.
So let’s do the math here. Ann Arbor took $18,000 of taxpayer money, sent city workers out to 600+ locations, ripped signs out of the ground, and hauled them away — all because the concept of watching for crime was deemed not “inclusive” enough. Meanwhile, actual crime still exists. Actual residents still lock their doors at night. But at least no burglar has to suffer the indignity of reading a sign that suggests stealing is frowned upon.
You know what’s actually “exclusive”? Getting your catalytic converter stolen. Getting your house broken into. Having your car windows smashed. THAT makes people feel like they don’t belong in their own neighborhood. But sure — the real problem was the signs.
This is what happens when you let people who have never had a real job run a city. They sit around in council chambers dreaming up ways to be offended by inanimate objects and then spend your money acting on it. A yellow sign with a picture of an eyeball — that’s what keeps Ann Arbor’s Democrats up at night. Not crime. Not safety. A sign.
If you live in Ann Arbor and you want to know whether your city government has your back — they just answered that question. They chose the feelings of hypothetical criminals over the safety of actual residents, and they did it without a single dissenting vote.
Maybe put up your own sign. Something really inclusive, like: “Welcome! We have cameras.”
