Four large “welcome” signs are not welcome in Orient.
The large blue signs, installed within the Route 25 right-of-way in Orient in the past month have Southold Town officials and members of the Orient community seeing red.
The Southold Town Board wants the signs to come down. The Orient Association agrees.
“They are totally out of character with the area,” association president Robert Hanlon said yesterday.
“We’ve had a long-running battle about preserving Main Road,” Hanlon said. “In fact, it is a fight that is a founding basis for our organization.”
The series of signs, which stand 10 to 12 feet tall, were installed by Empire State Development, New York’s chief economic development agency as part of a statewide tourism campaign intended to promote tourism in the region, according to a spokesperson for that agency. They greet people exiting the ferry terminal on Route 25.
They were put up without notice to or consultation with town officials, who found out about them after they went up.
Similar signs were also recently erected on the L.I. Expressway in the eastbound lanes in the vicinity of Exit 71, where a large “I Love NY” logo was also applied to an embankment near an overpass.
Another set of welcome signs installed by the state in the Village of Montauk late last month have sparked an uproar there.
“The goal of the ‘I Love NY’ road signs are to promote the state’s world-renowned tourism attractions and to continue to invest in the success of every region,” according to Chyresse Wells, deputy press secretary at Empire State Development.
But the signs are actually “pointless” in addition to being a visual blight, Hanlon says.
“They don’t accomplish anything. They are vanity signs,” Hanlon said.
Supervisor Scott Russell agreed. “They’re not just inappropriate, they’re utterly useless. The only thing they promote is the state agency,” he said.
“The only piece of information on the signs is the state website. That doesn’t serve us,” Hanlon said.
The website itself highlights attractions statewide, sorted by region and according to things tourists might do: historic places, museums and aquariums, nature trails, beaches, lodging and dining. Categories are not sortable by subregion, but can be sorted alphabetically and searched by “city.” To find a place in any category, a visitor to the site must already know its name or can browse by “city.” The listings in each category, however, are not very comprehensive. North Fork wineries and an assortment of B&Bs and hotels are listed, but only two North Fork restaurants appear there: Claudio’s in Greenport and North Fork Table in Southold. (There is no information on the site about how to get a local attraction or business listed there or what a listing costs, if anything.)
Hanlon said the Orient Association board would be sending a letter of complaint to the state.
Russell said the town was working its way through state bureaucracy to speak with someone who could order the signs removed, which is what the Town Board wants.
“Empire State Development will work with state and local officials to ensure any concerns they have are addressed,” the state agency spokesperson said.
