Soap Lake looks at adding new signs
An example of a sign put up by the city of Soap Lake. Members of the city council considered putting up three more informational signs as part of a city effort to keep people bettered informed about local events.
Rebecca Pettingill
SOAP LAKE - The Soap Lake City Council discussed the possibility of putting up new information signs in town at its Wednesday evening meeting.
“There’s no central place to go to find out what's happening in the city,” said Councilmember Bill Bratton.
The agenda item was introduced by Bratton for three new signs. The first sign would advertise Soap Lake businesses as a sort of directory. The second two signs would be a bulletin board for citizens to use to post yard sales, events or even for the council to post notices of their upcoming meetings. Bratton noted he thinks it will help keep the community looking nice because there wouldn’t be as much of a need for yard sale boxes on road corners.
A mockup of what the signage would look like was created by Marshall Signs and presented to the city council.
The initial idea Bratton explained to council was that he had spoken with the owners of the two coffee shops in town and they were okay with the billboards on their respective properties and to have the business directory sign where an older, outdated one currently sits at the corner of Daisy and Division streets.
Discussion among the members present included the best locations for the signs, the purposes of the signs and size of the signs.
Kat Sanderson said he had concerns of city-funded signage on private property rather than on property owned by the city, and he suggested putting the signs in front of city hall.
“The other thing that concerns me is who is going to maintain these postings that are on this thing and who’s going to clean them up and throw away what's up there?” Sanderson said regarding any signs put up on private property.
“A lot of people walk in town and they don’t drive,” said councilmember Kayleen Bryson.
She emphasized that those who do not drive in town most likely weren’t getting coffee at the drive up stands and therefore would not know to find the signs and information there.
All seemed to like the design of the sign created by Marshall Signs.
“The shape is wonderful and the idea is good, we just gotta figure it out…” Sanderson said.
“...where and how and what we can do with it,” finished Bryson.
No action was taken by the council but members agreed they would revisit the idea.
Rebecca Pettingill may be reached at rpettingill@columbiabasinherald.com.