Live Oak selling street signs for $5
Live Oak residents who want a “piece of history” to call their own will be able to shell out a mere $5 to purchase street signs that are being replaced throughout the city.
“We’ve had an outcry of people wanting to buy some of these signs,” Finance Director Leroy Kowalik told the Live Oak City Council at its Dec. 8 meeting.
City Manager Scott Wayman said the new sign effort would replace all 500-600 street signs within city limits. He said the city’s public works department employees are handling the replacement in phases.
“The guys are stripping the old signs down and stacking them up. Once we get a fair share of them, then we’ll advertise it since we’ll have people asking for them,” Wayman said.
Councilman Mendell Morgan Jr. said he supported the sign sale program.
“I think it’s very interesting about the selling of the street signs. I understand there will be public interest in that. It might even include me,” Morgan said.
He then asked if the funds realized could benefit the city’s animal shelter and Humane Society, which has seen fundraising efforts hampered during the months-long pandemic.
“It will be a relatively small amount of money, in terms of city overall operations,” Morgan said. “Could that money possibly be diverted to help our Live Oak animal control center or the Humane Society?
“This has been a year when organizations couldn’t effectively do fundraising. The opportunities haven’t presented themselves or the association to do things that we normally would do,” said Morgan, the council’s liaison to the animal shelter. “I would to ask if we could entertain the idea of earmarking those funds for that purpose.”
City attorney Clarissa Rodriguez said the council could take the issue up later. She said funds raised would have to go into the city’s general fund. The council could always come back at a future meeting with action to divert the funds to the shelter, if they chose.
Councilman Ed Cimics said he wondered if a more immediate sale could alleviate the need to pile hundreds of signs on public works grounds.
“Rather than having big piles of signs with people already interested, sell them off as quick as we get them and that will clear those signs out of the public works yard,” Cimics said. “I think the sign program is a great idea. I kind of concur with Councilman Morgan’s proposal.”
The council unanimously approved the sale of street signs for the agreed-upon $5 per sign. There was no mention as to when the sale of signs would start.
