papÉ signs go up

Blink and you might miss them.

The state Department of Transportation on Wednesday put up two small signs on the Randy Papé Beltline, one near each end of the 10-mile state highway, that say just that — Randy Papé Beltline.

The signs, which cost $750 apiece, were a compromise by the Oregon Transportation Commission, which voted in April to rename Belt Line Road after Papé, the late Eugene businessman and former commission member.

The transportation commission’s original plan, which stirred intense public opposition in Lane County, was to replace about 50 signs — some of them only a year or so old — at an estimated cost of $250,000.

After the backlash, not only to the spending of taxpayer money on the signs in harsh economic times, but to what some saw as a secretive process to rename the highway, the commission voted unanimously to install two new signs with the new name and replace all the other Beltline signs with “Randy Papé Beltline” signs as they wear out over the years.

Wednesday’s sign installation drew two protesters.

“It’s a testament to government waste,” said Springfield resident Scott Reynolds, standing with Eugene’s Mike Weber on the side of Randy Papé Beltline after a Transportation Department crew had installed one of the signs on the northbound lane about a half-mile north of where the highway joins with West 11th Avenue. “We’re $577 million in the hole, and to spend any money whatsoever on a vanity project is ridiculous in these times,” Reynolds said, referring to the state government’s projected revenue shortfall for the current biennium to pay for education, human services, public safety and other services.

Along with Eugene resident Kevin Prociw, Reynolds filed an initiative petition in April with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office to put the Beltline renaming issue to a statewide vote in November. If passed, their measure would require state government to secure voter approval in order to rename state property and physical features. The law also would repeal any property renaming by the state since Jan. 1.

But Prociw and Reynolds will have only until July 2 to gather almost 83,000 signatures needed to put the measure on the ballot in November. And they can’t start gathering signatures until the middle of this month at the earliest, after the state has officially adopted a ballot title, said Don Hamilton of the Secretary of State’s Office.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll have a week to collect 83,000 signatures,” Reynolds said. “We’re going to need some divine intervention. We’re working at the logistics. A lot of people think it’s an impossible task, and it may well be.”

Prociw and Reynolds came late to the 2010 ballot iniative process, Hamilton said. If they fail in their bid to collect enough signatures, they can file in August to put it on the 2012 ballot, he said. But Prociw and Reynolds — who recently launched a Web site on the issue, www.keepitbeltline.org, and also have a Facebook page with more than 9,000 “fans” — want to capitalize now while the issue is still a hot-button one, at least in Lane County.

The new signs are 5-by-3-foot reflective metal on plywood backing, on treated wood posts. The one on the east end of Beltline is between Interstate 5 and Coburg Road, next to the westbound lanes.

Since the transportation commission’s April vote, the Transportation Department has received a few messages threatening to destroy the signs, ODOT spokesman Rick Little said. Mike Spaeth, the district manager in the department’s Springfield office, received two anonymous calls, one threatening to burn the signs down, another threatening to vandalize them, Little said.

And a letter sent to department headquarters in Salem said: “Paintball season is near and what better target than ‘Randy Papé Beltline’ signs,” according to Little.

Photographs of the new signs posted Wednesday on Prociw and Reynolds’ Facebook page drew comments that included the following: “DISLIKE,” “Epic fail,” “Moment of silence for fallen democracy,” “How long before that sign gets vandalized? I give it a week,” “Such. A. Waste,” “PEW!!!” and “BARF.”