City of Everett Putting Up Misspelled Street Signs On Oakes

Editor’s Update Thursday July 27 5:30 PM: Just received the latest update from Kathleen Baxter at Everett Public Works…

An update for you on the sign spelling situation.

· Correction to number of signs with incorrect spelling: 9 “Oaks” and 1 “Emmerson”
· All misspelled “Oakes” and “Emerson Pl” signs have been removed.
· The fabrication cost per sign is $32.50.
· The old signs will be returned to our sign vendor, and we will receive a recycling credit.
· Time for replacement: 7-10 days from today for sign fabrication; reinstallation in approximately 2 weeks.
· To report a possible misspelled sign, call Everett Public Works at 425-257-8810 and ask to speak with a traffic engineer.

Details on how this happened:
Upon further investigation, we determined that the program to replace these signs (and more than 1800 other street name signs) was outside of our usual sign review process, which led us to employ a non-standard review process in preparing the sign list for our contractor. As a result, 10 signs were fabricated with misspelled street names. To mitigate future typographical errors, we are committed to following our established review process for all projects.

Editor’s Update 5:30 PM: After getting reports of several signs misspelled we took a quick run down Oakes and found 9 signs that were up with the wrong spelling between 15th street and 36th street. We checked with the City of Everett Public Works Department to find the total number of signs and the cost and received the following from spokesperson Kathleen Baxter…

There are 20 “Oakes” signs that are misspelled and need to be replaced. Our plan is to remove the misspelled signs by tomorrow and get them replaced within a week. We will know the cost per sign when we reach our sign fabricator and can let you know then.

Once we passed along our initial report we began receiving photos and tips from readers on other signs including this one in south Everett. Baxter says they were informed of that sign last night and are taking care of the fix. As someone who works without an editor I have on more than one occasion spelled words incorrectly, gotten a quote wrong or had to issue a correction for something written on MyEverettNews.com. Everybody’s human and if this is the worst thing that happens with public works than we are in great shape. – Leland Dart

A sharp-eyed daughter of a MyEverettNews.com reader pointed out to her father a problem with new street signs on Oakes Avenue between 20th and 24th. They spelled Oakes wrong. The city’s Public Works Department is looking into it.