Grays Harbor County, WA Sign Regulations: Political Signs (2026)

Section 17.60.070 sets the county's baseline sign standards for uses not covered by a specific zoning district's own sign rules. After listing permitted categories, such as a two-square-foot residential nameplate, church or school identification signs up to thirty square feet, outdoor advertising tied to an on-premises use, subdivision signs up to thirty square feet, and small six-square-foot signs advertising a property's sale or lease, the section carries a proviso specifically protecting political speech. It states that nothing in the section prohibits the display of signs, out-of-doors on real property, relating to the nomination or election of any individual for public political office or advocating any measure to be voted on at any special or general election.

That protection carries two limits, both spelled out in the same sentence: the political sign must be installed with the permission of the property owner, and nothing in the section permits placing a sign on real property or structures owned by the county or any other governmental entity. In effect, the county treats political signs as exempt from the size and placement limits that apply to the other sign categories listed earlier in the same section, so long as the owner-permission and no-government-property conditions are met.

The provision has stood since Ordinance 299 amended the section in 2002 and traces back to Ordinance 241's original 1998 codification of this chapter. Because the political-sign proviso sits inside the general sign section rather than a stand-alone election-sign chapter, a dispute over placement on county property or without owner consent is handled through the same code enforcement channel as any other Title 17 sign violation.