Between sign vandalism, illegal dumping and mudding on low-maintenance roads, over the past year Lyon County taxpayers have been hit hard in the pocketbook.
Sign vandalism was at an all-time high in 2006. In 2005, sign vandalism cost Lyon County $39,092.53. In 2006, that cost rose to $46,891.72. The last year that came close to 2006’s total was 2004, which was $43,691.78.
“You could about build a bridge with that cost,” Chip Woods, Lyon County engineer said recently.
Woods said the county’s biggest problem is with signs being paint-balled. These signs have to be re-faced after they have been hit. People shooting signs is another problem. Depending on the type and caliber of the gun used to shoot the sign, sometimes the sign can be saved and re-faced, but many times, a whole new sign is needed, which can cost $50 a pop.
“Shooting them hasn’t been that big of an issue lately,” Woods said. “We’ve had them blow holes in them several inches in diameter. With paintball, you have to re-face the sign completely.”
If a sign has to be completely reset, an additional $14 is added to the cost. That’s not to mention the labor costs required to do all this, Woods added.
Signs in the county are expensive, Woods said, because the county is required to use high engineering grade reflective signs. The reflectivity of a sign also has to be checked periodically by using an instrument that records the reflectivity, the date, time and has a GPS device to show the actual location of the sign. The county has used this device for three or four years, Woods said.
“The other option is to do a nighttime drive on the roads in the county and that gets expensive,” Woods said. “And it’s too much human judgment.”
Re-facing a sign can be labor intensive, Woods said. To re-face a sign, the metal part of the sign is put through a roller, which is run through a machine that uses pressure with a roller type vacuum. The sign face is self-sticking and the entire sign rolls through a large squeegee.
Woods said mudding on low-maintenance roads and in ditches is a problem in the county.
“It costs between $600 and $1,000 per half-mile to re-grade the roads and restore the ditches when some do mudding on dirt roads,” Woods said. “It depends on how much they have tore them up and how many times we have to grade the road and ditch to restore them to their original condition.”
How long it takes to restore a road to a driveable condition depends on the weather, Woods said. The roads and ditches have to dry out to a certain degree before they can be graded.
“If it stays dry and we get some sun and breeze, it can take about a week to get them dry enough to work them,” Woods added.