Officials say vandals in Canadian County are taking aim at street signs, and on Monday, one commissioner shot back.
District 1 Commissioner Phil Carson brought 12 damaged stop signs to Monday's weekly Commissioners meeting. He said the display represented one week of damage to stop signs situated throughout his district.
“This is only the last week's gathering of signs,” he said. “It's not stop sign season, but somehow we can't get the message across to the people who are shooting up these signs.”
When vandals shoot traffic signs, they aren't just defacing public property, Carson said. Residents ultimately pay the price because funds and resources needed for road and bridge repairs and construction are diverted to fixing and replacing those signs, he said.
“These aren't cheap to replace — besides the cost there is the fuel, the vehicle cost and the labor, and this takes away from what we can do on roads and bridges,” he said.
During a three-month period earlier this year, Carson said direct costs to replace shot-out signs topped $7,284. As the county struggles to balance its budget, he said officials need every dime.
“This vandalism takes away from everyone, and it's escalating rather than getting better,” Carson said. “I bring this up every year, and it doesn't seem to help.”
Paul Hesse, assistant district attorney, said earlier this year anyone convicted of defacing a sign would face misdemeanor charges, punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and/or 30 days in the county jail, and while a law was signed into effect earlier this year increasing potential rewards for the capture of sign vandals, Sheriff Randall Edwards said the problem was not that simple.
“We've caught some of these individuals red-handed, but because they're juveniles, there's not much that can be done,” he said. “We need to find stricter penalties for anyone engaging in this activity, and we need to show anyone doing this kind of thing — whether they're a juvenile or an adult — there are penalties for that activity.”
Beyond the financial cost, Carson said he is afraid sign defacement won't be taken seriously until someone is hurt or killed as a result of vandals' actions.
“A lot of these are in rural areas, but some of them are not,” he said. “Even in rural areas, many times there are homes in the line of fire. People don't understand that when they shoot a stop sign, the bullet doesn't stop there.”