Vandal Plays Name Game With Candidate : Simi Valley: Some Jim King signs were altered to read ‘Elect Rodney King.’ ‘It’s done, we fixed it, and we move on,’ he says.

Looking back, Simi Valley school board candidate Jim King says he should have expected something like this.

“If I had really sat down and thought about it, I probably would have realized that somebody could have gotten some play out of this,” King said Wednesday. “What can I do? My name is King.”

Which prompted some opportunistic vandal to wander about the city pasting the word Rodney over King’s first name on about half of his 30 campaign signs.

The altered signs read, “Elect Rodney King--a proven investment in our children’s future--for School Board.”

The candidate found out about the vandalism Saturday, when a fellow ham radio operator called with the news.

“He said, ‘Did you know that your signs are being vandalized,’ ” King said. “I said ‘No,’ and he said, ‘Somebody’s covering up your name and writing Rodney.’ I guess I chuckled a little bit.”

After receiving similar calls all weekend, King drove around Monday and found that all of his signs posted along the Simi Valley Freeway had been tampered with in the same way--a strip of yellow construction paper matching the color of the sign was pasted over his name and “Rodney” had been written on the paper in black ink.

“They had to think it out, and they had to put some effort into it,” King said. “That’s not to say that I think it’s malicious. I don’t. I just think somebody’s playing a prank.”

In April, four white Los Angeles police officers were found not guilty in the beating of black motorist Rodney G. King in a trial held in Simi Valley that touched off the Los Angeles riots.

A King campaign worker made the rounds Wednesday returning the posters to their original form. The candidate said he did not report the crime because the police “have better things to do with their time than to worry about temporary signs that are going to come down in three weeks.” He said he was putting the practical joke behind him.

“Why should I allow myself to get upset?” King said. “There are so many more important things to deal with. Somebody had a good laugh. I suppose a lot of people had a good laugh without even thinking about it. It’s done, we fixed it, and we move on.”

King is not the only local candidate to say that his campaign signs have been vandalized. Last month, Simi Valley City Council candidate Bob Plunkett reported that some of his signs were destroyed and left in pieces on the ground. Plunkett was so outraged that he offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who vandalized any political sign in Simi Valley before the Nov. 3 election.

Simi Valley Police Sgt. John Wilcox said that, unless the circumstances surrounding the vandalism are particularly unusual, destruction of political signs is considered low priority.

“Defacing a campaign sign is not as high a priority as robbery or assault,” Wilcox said. “It may be to the candidate, but we’ll get to them as we can. Calls for service where there’s safety involved--we have to go to them first.”