KCS scholarship event signs taken down by D.O.T. as they were on state property

KENT — Marie O’Brien, president of the Kent Center School Scholarship Fund, noticed on July 27 that the signs she and volunteers put up on routes 341 and 7 advertising the fund’s Aug. 9 Upscale Tag Sale were missing.

O’Brien assumed the signs had been stolen. The next day, after receiving a tip from a friend in real estate, O’Brien found out that the signs were taken away by the state Department of Transportation (DOT) in New Milford. The state has the right to remove signs that are on state property or that are in the right of way.

“It took me seven phone calls with seven different people to locate where they were,� O’Brien said. “This is terrible that the DOT is doing this to nonprofit organizations in this economy. The signs are not blocking anything. They didn’t even call us to tell us that they had the signs!�

O’Brien estimates that each sign cost the scholarship fund $50 to $55.

“I am truly outraged,� she said. “They didn’t block any views on roads and they don’t pose a threat to plows because there’s no snow!�

Kevin Nursick from the DOT communications office said that it’s illegal to put signs on state land, even if they are signs from a nonprofit organization.

“It is not our call to choose which signs can stay up and which signs to take down,� Nursick said. “I want to stress that we don’t wake up in the morning then get in our trucks and drive around to find signs to take down. We take them down as priorities allow. If someone puts a sign somewhere, it cannot be on state land or DOT right of way.�

Nursick said the DOT keeps removed signs for up to 30 days and makes every effort to find the owners of the signs.

However, O’Brien said she was never contacted. But she did manage to retrieve all of the signs taken by the DOT.

“This has never happened before,� she said. “To me, in this economy where nonprofits are working to provide money for children to go to college, I think this is bad politics.�

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