Town council has approved spending $28,100 on an LED sign for the municipal office on Trafalgar Road (Wellington Road 24).
Economic development officer Robyn Mulder presented a report to council on Nov. 7 outlining four options for a new sign at the town office just south of Hillsburgh.
The previous sign, found structurally unsound by the building department, was removed in April.
Since then staff have explored different options, including:
– an LED digital sign at a cost of $28,100;
– a dual-sided vinyl sign with a manually changeable message board, $18,400;
– a woodgrain sign with no messaging, $8,500; and
– not replacing the sign.
The town approved $10,800 in the 2017 budget. Mulder recommended the town choose the LED option and fund the remaining $17,300 from the working capital reserve.
“This sign will look smart, clean, professional and is energy-efficient,” she said.
Councillor Matt Sammut asked if outside the town office would be the best location to reach the most people.
“Have we made a decision that this sign is going to be one of the key advertising [signs] for the town? Because originally we talked about a few different locations, potentially,” Sammut said.
Mayor Allan Alls noted the sign’s location at the municipal office is determined by Wellington County, as it is on a county road.
“We have looked at how fast traffic has been going, which is 80km/h, so you have to look at how big your font is, we can put the right lettering in there, so the traffic will see our lettering,” said Mulder. “This is completely separate. We will be looking down the track at wayfinding signage, but this is specifically for our town hall location.”
Councillor John Brennan supported the choice for the LED sign.
“I think going this way is worth the investment because it gives a greater flexibility to advertise events in the town and I think it also means we are not wasting staff time going out and manually changing signs,” he said.
Councillor Jeff Duncan disagreed.
“One of the concerns I have … is (it’s) probably only roughly a quarter of the town that actually drive by this site and see whatever is posted on the LED sign,” he said.
“I’d almost be tempted to put the cost savings of almost $10,000 into actually fixing up the Ballinafad community hall sign.”
More than message board
Mulder said the sign can be more than a message board.
“We can also use this sign for emergency services and we don’t only have to put words on there, you can actually put images on there too,” she said. “I think this will look like we are trying to communicate with the public.”
Council voted 4-1, with Duncan opposed, to spend $28,100 on the digital sign.
