Caltrans representative Julia Peterson unveiled new welcome signs that will be built on U.S. 101 and 199. | Screenshot
Using an oft-quoted phrase involving beer, District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey warned that California’s new monument signs on U.S. 101 and 199 may prompt Oregon to step up its game.
Clean California Coordinator Julia Peterson unveiled the sign that will be constructed and installed on U.S. 199 later this year. Though Caltrans is still figuring out the color scheme, the new sign will feature the Golden State’s iconic shape and state flower. A momma bear and her cub will flank the sign welcoming motorists through Del Norte County’s northeastern gate.
The sign’s back side will encourage motorists to “drive safely,” Peterson said.
“Bears was a theme everyone wanted,” she told supervisors Tuesday, adding that Caltrans had deployed a survey via the Wild Rivers Outpost.
The current sign is showing wear and tear and there’s a culvert that’s in the way, Peterson said. The plan is to redo the culvert and install sidewalk.
“It will be visible if you don’t hit your brakes,” she said, adding that there will be a gravel parking area. “People take pictures of the existing sign. We’ve designed this so that California is up high when they stand next to it — they might block ‘welcomes you’, but they will still have ‘California’ and our well-known shape.”
District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard introduced Peterson to his colleagues, pointing out that for the past few years Oregon’s monument signs have caught his eye as he traveled to Brookings or Medford. The signs were great, he said, but made California’s look shabby.
Howard said he’d been working with Peterson for about a year on getting replacement signs and was looking for his colleagues’ support.
The monument on U.S. 101 welcoming travelers from Curry County will be similar to its counterpart on 199, Peterson said, but the plan is to swap the bears out for another iconic creature. Seals are a possibility as are salmon.
Peterson said Caltrans even thought of having elk grace the 101 monument, though the antlers would be easy to break off.
Starkey put a vote in for the salmon option.
“It represents so much of our area especially with the removal of the Klamath dams and how we’re trying to bring back the salmon to our area,” she said.
Howard wanted to make a distinction between the coastal environment along U.S. 101 and the inland area headed into Josephine County. He suggested swapping out the rock on the 101 sign for a wave could complement Starkey’s suggestion of incorporating salmon into the design.
Board Chairman Dean Wilson had a suggestion for the U.S. 199 sign. Instead of a baby bear on the top left side of the Golden State’s shape, he recommended adding redwood trees instead.
“Behind part of that California would be a representation of several redwood trees,” Wilson suggested.
Clean California is a $1.2 billion program Gov. Gavin Newsom initiated post-COVID with the goals of removing litter, creating jobs and beautifying the Golden State.
In other Del Norte County news:
• After supervisors told staff to work with SiteLogIQ on a potential microgrid project, another goal in the strategic plan — improving the public defender’s office — will have to take a back seat, Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper said.
“We’ve done three different recruitment cycles and we haven’t been able to appoint a public defender,” he said. “We’ll have to figure out a different tactic for [this] and move the microgrid conversation up.”
Hooper’s progress report noted that overall, the county is about 20 percent of the way toward completing the action items outlined in the 2024-25 strategic plan. The plan has four focus areas that include focusing on staff recruitment and retention, addressing homelessness and shoring up law enforcement as well as a “general governance and budget” component.
Hooper said the Board’s adoption of the county’s budget last month moved the latter focus area forward by about 32 percent. However, the county is running into capacity obstacles with the concern regarding the public defender’s office being one example, he said.
Another change to the strategic plan since the Board adopted it in April includes a focus on economic development after the Tri-Agency Economic Development Authority disbanded in June.
• Supervisors unanimously approved hiring Kerri Vue as the director of Human Resources and Risk Management. The county’s strategic plan called for a standalone human resources and risk management department. Board Chairman Dean Wilson pointed out that the strategic plan emphasizes the need to increase staffing levels. Having an HR director will expedite that process, Wilson said.
