Politics & Government
Selling Rye Street Signs Could Mean Thousands in Revenue
Rye City Councilman Joe Sack came up with idea to sell unused city street signs and idea has caught on with collectors after Sack's suggestion was approved by Rye Mayor Doug French and City Manager Brian Pickup and listed on city web site
In a time when many municipalities are looking for an additional source of revenue, one public official has come up with a clever way to generate additional revenue—selling Rye street signs.
Rye City Councilman Joe Sack came up with the idea when a neighbor was moving away, and he wanted to give them something to remember Rye by.
That’s when Sack came up with what he calls his “Sentimental Street Sign Reclamation Project.”
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“Why not give my neighbors an old street sign as a going away present,” he remembers thinking when one of his Thorne Place neighbors was moving away to Colorado after 35 years in Rye.
So Sack checked with City Manager Scott Pickup as to the availability of old street signs. Pickup said there was a batch stored at the Department of Public Works. He thought $20 would be a fair price for one. So Sack plunked down $20 bucks for a sign, made the check out to Rye and an idea was born.
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“We are taking lemons and making lemonade,” Sack said. “We’re taking something that was going unused, and we’re selling it, and making money from it. It’s a sign of fiscal responsibility in austere financial times.”
Rye posted an announcement about the street sign availability on its website two weeks ago.
“The demand has been incredible ever since,” said Rye Mayor Dough French.
So much so that Sack wondered whether maybe Rye should charge more.
“I think we could probably get $100, but Scott thinks $20 is enough,” he said. “Selling the street signs may mean $10,000 to Rye by the time the city finishes replacing all its street signs –we’re about two-thirds through by now. But for a city like New York, it could mean millions.”
Sack said he ran into former Rye City Councilman Gerry Seitz the other day and teased him about coming up with a revenue-generating idea just like Seitz had back in the day –it was Seitz who came up with the idea for a local hotel tax.
“Now we’re talking about another revenue generating idea –selling ads on the back of those slips you get when you use one of the parking meters in town,” said Sack, an attorney with his own firm who moved to Rye a decade ago and has served on the City Council since 2008.
“That’s the idea, take something that’s going unused, and put it to work,” Sack added. “If the city can take that something and use it as a revenue generator, that’s all the better.”
