The Federal Way Parks and Recreation/Human Services/Public Safety committee approved an agreement for the making and installation of a number of “monument” signs throughout Federal Way parks.

The agreement would see the city spending approximately $82,000 on these signs in the near future. The agreement will be approved or denied by the full city council during the council’s Sept. 3 meeting.

Steve Ikerd, parks and facilities manager for the city, highlighted a few places where these signs are already up, saying the city has been fabricating them itself in order to figure out what works best.

“We’ve built a few to try and work through the bugs, because this was a self-design,” Ikerd said during the committee’s Aug. 13 meeting. He noted signs at Celebration Park, which has a 6-foot sign, along with a 2-foot sign at the BPA Trail. “We’ve lived with these for a couple of years. (And we’re) getting the feel of how they’d function, and we’ve tweaked them a little.”

Ikerd indicated that there’s approximately $39,000 in carry-over funds from previous budgets, and that approximately $42,000 would be used out of the parks department’s maintenance fund.

“We’ve still got a lot of old wood signs with the old logo still,” he said. “We’ve been getting a pretty favorable reaction to the new signs.”

Committee member Kelly Maloney asked if Ikerd had any timeframe for the completion of these signs. Ikerd said he and his staff anticipate probably between nine months to a year.

“It will probably take us a while,” he said. “We’ve got to get a permit for each sign, and that just takes a while to get through that process. But if we get the contract…(it will probably be) a year-long contract or nine months, and we’ll push to get them done as soon as possible.”

Maloney asked about the ability to modify these signs in case any major changes occur as the city works on improving its image in the region. Public works director Cary Roe was on hand for the Aug. 13 meeting, and said there is a degree of changeability in the signs.

“That costs some money but they’re not crazy expensive,” Roe said.

According to the staff report compiled for this, the city plans on doing 26 of these signs throughout the city, with 21 of those 26 signs being the 4-foot model. The costs for each type of sign are as follows:

• 6 feet: $2,985/each

• 4 feet: $2,443/each

• 2 feet: $1,651/each