The marquee sign in front of Fairview Park City Hall is broken and needs to be replaced, city officials said. (West Life photo by Kevin Kelley)

Lights go out on Fairview Park City Hall sign
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published Oct. 21, 2009

The marquee sign in front of Fairview Park City Hall is no longer lit up at night.

That’s because its electrical circuits are shot, Mayor Eileen Patton said.

Patton is asking City Council to approve $24,900 for the purchase of a new LED sign. But one councilman says that’s too much to spend on a sign in these hard economic times.

The current sign was purchased from a Florida company 11 years ago, Patton told West Life. The problems with the sign are weather related, the mayor added.

The message on the sign is changed manually at least once and often twice a day on weekdays, Patton said. The sign is an important tool city leaders use to communicate with residents, she added.

First priority is given to city-related messages, such as times and dates of upcoming council meetings or leaf pickup dates, the mayor said. Information involving civic organizations, including area schools, is also posted on the sign. Finally, messages of congratulations to residents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary or a birthday (90 years and older, only) are posted.

“The amount of calls and requests for items to go on that sign is incredible,” Patton said. “Sometimes we have to turn people away and say we can’t put [their message] up.”

One benefit of a computerized LED sign will be that it can be programmed to display several messages on a rotating basis, the mayor said. Messages can also be programmed to be updated over the weekend, she added.

Currently, service department personnel change the messages, Patton said, adding that it takes about a half hour to change both sides of the marquee. The city would be better off having the service workers freed up to perform other tasks, the mayor said.

This graphic shows the new LED message sign proposed for Fairview Park City Hall. (Courtesy Wagner Electric Sign)

The city obtained three quotes for LED signs. Wagner Electric Sign of Elyria came back with the lowest quote. The proposed new sign will display messages in an amber color as opposed to the red LED lights used in the message sign at the Gemini Center.

Patton plans to pay for the sign with money from a special street lighting fund that is assessed on residents’ property taxes. The dedicated fund, which by law cannot be used for purposes other than street lighting, collects about $205,000 annually. The yearly bill for street lighting is around $200,000, Patton said. Over the years, a surplus of around $400,000 has accumulated in the fund, the mayor said.

But Ward 5 Councilman Pete Matia, who was appointed to council earlier this year, said at an Oct. 12 council committee meeting that he was reluctant to support such an expenditure.

“I just in good conscience can’t vote for a $25,000 sign when we don’t have the money,” Matia said.

Council members and administration officials are concerned about next year’s budget because Cuyahoga County officials recently informed the city that property tax revenue will be down 9 percent next year. Nevertheless, Patton told West Life that the city still hopes for a modest surplus in 2010.

But because the street lighting fund is a dedicated fund, the surplus in that fund cannot be transferred to the general fund.

An ordinance approving the expenditure for a new LED sign had its second reading at Monday evening’s council meeting.

Matia also said he preferred the current manual sign instead of LED signs.

“I find the present sign quaint and nice,” Matia said.

The cost of simply replacing the current sign with another manual sign would be around $11,000, plus the labor for electrical work, according to Patton.

Patton noted that the proposal for the new LED sign uses today’s technology and requires less manpower to operate.

“We have to fix the sign,” the mayor told West Life. “It’s broken. Or we do nothing and leave the sign broken.”

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