Officials have had it with theft of road signs in town

While Lovers Lane marker has long been a favorite target, now other signs are being swiped
By 
KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM
Ozaukee Press staff

Town of Port Washington officials were frustrated Monday night, trying to figure out why someone sawed off the road signs at the intersection of Green Bay Road and Hillcrest Drive.

“Lovers Lane I understand,” Supr. Mike Didier said. “That’s probably in a lot of dorm rooms.”

Even Highland Drive he could understand, since someone could relate it to marijuana use, he said.

But Green Bay and Hillcrest?

“It’s craziness,” Town Chairman Jim Melichar said.

The town has to replace at least one road sign a year and often more, he said, and it’s not cheap. 

While the sign itself only costs about $28, the cost of replacing the post adds up, he said, totalling $150 to $175.

So far this year, Melichar said, the town has had to replace three road signs.
One of those is the infamous Lovers Lane sign.

Melichar said in his 10 years on the Town Board, the town’s replaced that sign at least six times.

“Lovers Lane we can’t keep up,” Didier said. “It’s kind of like a trophy.”

Most recently, the county placed the Lovers Lane sign 16 feet up on a utility pole instead of a traditional signpost, Didier said.

The county even made a special mount for the sign to make it more difficult to remove, Melichar noted.

“It lasted years,” Didier said.

The Lovers Lane sign was swiped so often that the town at one point considered renaming the road, he added.

But the Green Bay Road and Hillcrest Drive signs were particularly vexing, officials said, because whoever took it didn’t just take the sign or nab it after an accident knocked the pole over.

They cut the three-inch diameter metal pole on which it was mounted, they said.

“It had to be a Sawzall,” Melichar said, noting how straight a cut the thief made when taking it down.

Removing the signs isn’t an easy task, he said.  

Didier said the sign was taken a while ago, noting a resident recently emailed him to alert the town.

“It’s been down a long time but no one noticed that,” he said.

Frustrated, Melichar made a simple request.

“Just ask. We’ll have one made,” he said. “They don’t have to steal them.”

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Wisconsin’s largest paid circulation community weekly newspaper. Serving Port Washington, Saukville, Grafton, Fredonia, Belgium, as well as Ozaukee County government. Locally owned and printed in Port Washington, Wisconsin.

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