SPRING, Texas — Sheila Rojas put a sign in her yard intending to help her community heal. She never thought it would divide her subdivision.
Rojas put up a sign honoring Harris County Sheriff's deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal who was shot and killed in the line of duty in September 2019.
Board members of her Cypressdale homeowners' association wrote a letter to Rojas, telling her that her sign was a violation of the deed restrictions, and only one school sign is allowed on a homeowner's front yard.
Rojas felt that was a grey area, considering other political campaign signs are not expressly forbidden.
"So if we can have one school sign, why can’t we have one Dhaliwal sign?" Rojas said. "Never did I think that I would get negative feedback for posting this sign in my yard."
Rojas posted on Facebook, expressing her frustration.
"This sign is barely visible to the people driving down our street speeding. Unless you slow down and look my yard over you wouldn’t even know the sign is there," she wrote in her post.
"Having a child in law enforcement did bring (Dep. Dhaliwail's death) closer to home, knowing it could have been my child as it was somebody else’s child. It’s personal," Rojas said.
Board members told Sheila Thursday afternoon they are re-evaluating the rules about signs, and she can keep hers up for now.
"Their grief is not over and it’s never going to be over. So if I can support them in the smallest way by putting a sign in my yard, I’m going to do it," Rojas said.