Carolina Journal Managing Editor Rick Henderson and I talked recently about his reporting on the federal cash being spent on signs to identify and promote projects funded by the stimulus package. You can read about at www.carolinajournal.com. Here’s a sample (emphasis is mine):
Martinez: Now to be fair, I think it’s reasonable to have a sign posted to let people know what is going on when they see a big construction site. I don’t have a problem with that, but it seems pretty amazing about actually how much is being spent on some of these signs. Incredible amounts of money — are they gold-plated or something?
Henderson: Well, they’re very, very fancy. And, in fact, the story that I did for Carolina Journal, I actually went down, I was driving to Wilmington to an event, and I remembered seeing this sign, so I went and took a photograph of it because I’d actually seen some reporting about the concerns about the cost of these things. It’s a very fancy sign. I gotta tell you, it’s really nice. Virginia Foxx, who is the 5th District representative, her office says that they’ve found the average cost of the majority of the signs up in North Carolina is about $2,500 a piece. Now you can compare that. In Tennessee, for instance, they use signs that look like speed-limit signs, and they cost about $40.
Martinez: So it can be done for $40, but we’re spending more?
Henderson: You could do this for less. The biggest one of all — this is something ABC News pointed out — was one that’s near Washington Dulles International Airport. This sign cost $10,000.
