CAPE CORAL, Fla. — On Monday, Southwest Florida's fastest-growing city, Cape Coral, is dealing with a growing number of damaged street signs.
Cape Public Works leaders said they're being vandalized in North Cape, where Public Works Director Michael Ilczyszyn said the problem is the worst.
Ilczyszyntells me it is because of all the growth in the North Cape, but with only three employees to fix this, I asked what it meant for public safety.
“We do the best we can to maintain what we have like I said we have a preventive maintenance schedule as well as handling these signs that get taken out by accidents,” said Ilczyszyn.
lczyszyn said that maintenance helps them see potential safety problems the public might not.
In the city of cape coral, there are over 57,532 street signs.
That means all 3 employees handle more than 19,000 signs a piece.
lczyszyn said that maintenance helps them see potential safety problems the public might not and to get the fix done faster, his team makes the signs, creating more than 5,000 last year.
“We try to get to those ones that yield right of way, yield signs, stop signs, all those are top priority, first priority,” said lczyszyn.
In the city that makes up more than 14% of Lee County's total population, people like Amanda Larkin are at the top of that list.
“I noticed the grass was all torn up, when I looked over I noticed that the entire sign was knocked down both of the street names were off of it,” said Larkin.
Larkin said she made the call to report the damaged sign in the middle of the night and for only having three employees, the response was quick.
"They got over here right away and put the sign up," said Larkin.
Cape Coral Public Works said they also work with the Cape Coral Police Department which helps alert them to damaged signs.
Anyone who notices a damaged sign can call the number 311, which will connect callers to the city's call center.
