MISSION VIEJO, CA — There was no pomp or circumstance in a Mission Viejo neighborhood after its Lake Forest-based homeowners association reportedly removed graduation announcement signs from front yards.
For students such as Sofia Muratalla, a senior at Santa Margarita High School, her graduation yard sign was a lifeline to what is normal. It came in a celebration package, along with a T-shirt and cookies, and other mementos from a year interrupted. Her family placed the sign out front of their Mission Viejo home to mark the milestone.
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has sent parents and students into a tailspin as they navigate how to mark the end of an era in a different world. Many schools are delivering “yard announcements” to commemorate the graduations or promotions. Neighborhoods have filled with drive-by parades of cars honking and passengers waving in celebration. But not everyone is happy about it.
To a member of the Mirasol HOA board of directors in the neighborhood where Sofia lives, the sign — and others like it — are eyesores, Patch was told.
Update: After Patch reported on the issue, the association changes their tune. Here’s how it happened. Read: Mission Viejo Grads Replace Yard Signs, Buoyed By Support
Sofia is a celebrated artist at Santa Margarita High School, and has taught art classes for the youth in her area. She has committed to attend Texas Christian University in the fall, and plans on majoring in interior design.
Mom Claudia Navarrete is helping guide Sofia through the milestone senior year, attempting to maintain normalcy wherever possible.
This spring, after the shutdown, Sofia and her friends held a “pretend prom” allowing each to dress up and take pictures to commemorate that occasion.
The fact that all senior-related festivities were halted due to the quarantine is heart-wrenching, Navarrete said. The graduation sign and care package from the school helped to ease some of the sadness.
On Tuesday, she discovered the graduation announcement was missing from their front yard. They found it leaning by their front door.
At first, Navarrete assumed the gardeners had moved it, or possibly the mailman. Then, she said, a neighbor informed them that it was a member of their HOA’s board of directors who had removed the sign.
During a pandemic, with the world on hold, the thought that someone would uproot something positive and celebratory took their whole family aback.
“I never thought the signs would be a problem,” she said.
It’s an HOA gone out of control, according to Josh Smisko, who lives in the same neighborhood.
Smisko, a father to a fifth grade son, was equally disturbed at the removal of his yard signs in their area of the Mirasol HOA neighborhood.
On his street, signs were removed and just taken, he says.
He wants them returned.
Smisko’s neighborhood had several front yards that were decorated in celebration of promoting fifth and eighth graders. All of the decorations are gone.
“A board member confirmed that she had removed the signs at the meeting on May 17,” Smisko told Patch. “She provided no notice to the homeowners and just took the signs away from the promoting fifth and seventh graders already traumatized by this pandemic.”
Smisko identified the board member. Patch reached out to her for a comment and is awaiting a response.
Whether some view the yard signs as an eyesore, neighbors interviewed by Patch said the celebration for children who are denied the pomp and circumstance of graduation and promotion is a small price to pay during a pandemic.
“My daughter doesn’t want her fellow seniors forgotten during these unexpected times,” Navarrete told Patch. “All of the love that she has received throughout these unexpected times means the world to her.”
Patch reached out to the Mirasol Homeowners Association, and to the Total Property Management Company that oversees them, and has updated this report with their response:
On Thursday, the Executive Director of Total Property Management Company responded to Patch, saying that the yard signs had been returned, or were available to residents who identified and requested them.
“Residents are allowed to display the signs within the community through the end of June,” Jerri Boone, Executive Director of Total Property Management, told Patch. She added that both the Board and Management “regret any inconvenience or insensitivity during this time.”
What is your opinion on yard signs? For? Against? Let us know in comments, or email your Patch editor: Ashley.Ludwig@Patch.com
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