The Knox City Council this week agreed to decline a grant offered by the federal government for replacing street signs, and instead will proceed with replacing the signs on their own.
Mayor Rick Chambers told WKVI that the council agreed to decline the grant because the $50,000 grant required a $5,000 match from the city. That cost, combined with the fact that the grant only covered the engineering aspect of the project, convinced the council to proceed with the project at their own expense. New regulations from the federal government requires all signs to be replaced with newer, more reflective signs by 2018.
A second grant would be expected following the completion of the engineering portion that would cover the expense of replacing the signs, but with another match from the city– and Chambers believes the city would save a significant amount of money by waiving the engineering portion and handling the replacement themselves.
“Why would we spend $50,000 to engineer this project when we only have 250 stop signs at 50 bucks each? I can change all of those stop signs for almost the amount of money that we would have to spend on a match,” said Chambers. “I’m thinking we can be done with this project and be done with it long before 2018 and meet the codes that the feds require.”
The council agreed to decline the grant, and the $5,000 saved from the engineering portion will be spent on replacing signs over the next few years.
