By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

CASCO — It’s important not to send the wrong message.

That’s especially true for a municipality that has a duty to inform the public, the taxpayers. 

There has been a problem with the Town of Casco’s digital sign, which is located in front of the Casco Fire Station and the Casco Town Hall off Meadow Road. 

It has been flashing messages of events from months ago. Local residents have found the outdated messages distracting as they drive by.

The digital sign problem was discussed during the Casco Board of Selectmen meeting on March 2. The issue was brought up by a resident during Public Participation but was also in the Manager’s Report on the agenda.  

It is a disconnect between the software program, which seems to have expired at the end of 2020, and the actual sign, according to Casco Interim Town Manager Don Gerrish. Town staff have been unable to override the software and change the messages, he said. 

For now, the solution is to shut off the sign rather than confuse residents, he said.

“I am going to shut it off,” he said. “We are looking for alternative software that would be compatiblewith the sign.”

“Talking around, we are not the only town having problems with the software,” Gerrish said.

“We have separate software from the message board. The software that is used to run it — they updated their software on Jan. 1. When they updated it, the sign and the software aren’t working together. We have contacted both the sign people and the software contract people. The signs people said within a week they would get signs to work. We are waiting for it to be resolved between the sign company and the software company,” Gerrish said. 

“We can’t even change it. We cannot take one panel down or two of the panels down” so it’ll be correct, he said.

The gentleman who had mentioned the sign problem stepped up to the microphone again and said that perhaps it was because as he was getting older and cannot read as well as he used to, but he felt there was a lot of information, a lot of word on each message. He was concerned it might be hazardous for drivers trying to read as they pass by. Maybe, shorter messages would be better, he said.

Gerrish agreed, saying that there is a lot of information on the sign at one time, and perhaps once the sign is up and running again,  the town could work on displaying shorter messages.