Missing sign nets near-misses

A stop sign on the ground at K-15’s intersection with heavily traveled 330th Rd., the main route into Tampa, caused numerous calls to 911, several apparent near accidents, and an exchange of concerning radio transmissions with sheriff’s deputies during Friday night’s snowfall.

Dispatchers said they had been hearing about this sign all evening. After they received a call at 9:11 p.m. from a K-15 motorist about the missing sign nearly causing an accident, a dispatcher radioed deputies saying:

“We have updated Road and Bridge, and we will give them another call and let them know that sign is still down and we have people going through it.”

Deputy Kaylan Miles responded: “I’ll head up there and see if I can at least prop up the sign so it’s somewhat visible and see what we can do.”

Deputy Josh Meliza said he’d been notified of the missing sign around 5 p.m. and let dispatchers know.

“They told Road and Bridge about it, and Road and Bridge said tough luck with the weather; they’ll take care of it next week,” Meliza said.

The dispatcher asked whether she should call Road and Bridge again, or just let it go.

“Well,” Meliza radioed back, “if they’re not going to do anything about it, there’s no point calling them.”

Checking records in the dispatchers’ computer-aided dispatch system, the dispatcher said Road and Bridge had been notified about the sign around 4 p.m. Friday.

“I guess anytime we get called about it, just make a note in the same CAD,” Meliza said. “We can print it off and go [talk to them about it] Monday.”

Monday, however, was a holiday, observing the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.

County engineer Brice Goebel said Tuesday that the sign actually belonged to Kansas Department of Transportation, not the county.

“They have put it back up on a temporary stand,” he said.

Goebel said he did not know when the sign was put back up or when a permanent fix would be made.