Wallis sign stirs up controversy

In Wallis, a sign in front of an ice house is getting a lot of attention for the messages it's carrying, KTRK reports. "Welfare started as a hand up, not a generational lifestyle!!!!!" the sign read recently. Other messages have included "If you can't feed them, don't breed them," and "America proud, one language: English." And those haven't sat well with some Willisites, who claim the messages are inappropriate and racist — or nationalist. "To me they are racially motivated," Titania Newsom told Channel 13. "They are singling out certain nationalities, and that's just not appropriate."

Some of the sign's opponents have complained to City Hall, and the Willis police chief even stopped by CNL's Icehouse to ask owner Curtis Ransom to take the sign down. "This is America, it's free speech, it's my property," Ransom said. "There's no cursing, there's nothing religious on there. There is nothing racist. All of my statements are general statements, it's meant for everybody." But here's the thing: The messages on the sign come from Willis residents, who put ideas in a suggestion box inside the bar. "Anybody can come in there and put a suggestion on what you want on [the sign]," Larry Alexander said. "They pick out the ones they want on there."

Should be interesting to see how this all turns out. It doesn't seem like Ransom's going to take the sign down anytime soon, and it looks like people support him — at least those who responded to a KTRK online survey. Nearly 95 percent of them said it's Ransom's right to put anything he wants on the sign, while just 3.5 percent said the messages are unfair.