School board candidate reunited with stolen campaign signs

ENCINITAS, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) -- In a school board election, covering two small elementary schools in a corner of a relatively small surfside city, political shenanigans are at play.

“It potentially is one of the smallest races for sure, but it seems to be heating up, because now as the time goes by, I see my yard signs being taken down,” said Richard Brocchini, South Bay fire battalion chief and candidate for the Cardiff School Board.

With as few as 8,000 possible voters total, Brocchini says in a race so small he never thought political chicanery would be an issue, but after more than a dozen signs stolen and the election currently in the early voting phase, he did something novel.

“I had permission from the residents to put my signs up there. So, what I did was put a GPS tracker in the last sign and now we know exactly where that sign has traveled the entire day and where it ended up at the end of the day,” Brocchini said.

Brocchini's day job is a South Bay fire battalion chief and says screenshots show his school board sign crisscrossing San Diego County, even stopping by at a veterinarian’s appointment. Then after hours on the road, the sign led to a home very close to his daughter’s school and his phone pinged the Apple AirTag, leaving no doubt where the sign ended up.

Brocchini says his opponents are not responsible for the signs being taken, and this evening, Brocchini followed the Apple tracker to a home and eventually asked for his sign back in which he did receive one back.

“What does someone say when you ask what are you doing with my sign beeping in the back of your car?”

“You know he actually said 'no problem,' and we actually had a nice long conversation about we are Cardiff brothers and sisters, and we shouldn’t be doing these kinds of things, he apologized and shook my hand and went our separate ways,” Brocchini said.