For six months, a welcome sign at the Salem-Keizer border has sat dented and the brick wall behind it mangled in pieces. The sign is frequently damaged by car crashes and has cost the city of Salem around $72,000 to fix in just the last three years. It was most recently hit around April. Salem and Keizer officials are considering tearing down the structure, which declares that the two cities are “working together.” It sits on an island at the junction of Broadway Street, Stark Street and River Road.  Since 2021, the sign has been struck at least once a year. The repair cost has escalated each time. “There has been no official determination for why the sign is frequently damaged,” according to Trevor Smith, spokesman for Salem’s Public Works Department.  This time, fixing the sign would cost around $40,000, Smith said.   Keizer City Manager Adam Brown said in a public statement on Aug. 16, that he talked with Salem City Manager Keith Stahley about the sign, and they “both agreed that it should probably just come down.” “Repairing it three times a year just does not make sense,” Brown wrote. Fixing the sign would be Salem’s responsibility because it’s within city limits, but Keizer provides electricity for the property. The repairs have typically been paid for by Salem’s transportation fund, which is mostly funded through state gas taxes. The circular brick wall displays two other signs welcoming drivers to Salem and Keizer.  Smith said public works is considering options for removing the structure and updating the signs to better protect the area long-term. A landscaping crew reported the most recent damage in April. Officials have no information about the cause but assume it was a car crash, according to Smith. The sign at the time was already awaiting repairs from a summer 2023 crash. Fixing the most recent damage has been delayed because the city has struggled to find sufficient funding for the frequent repairs, according to Smith. When a driver responsible for the damage can be identified, the city works with their insurance company to help cover the costs. But he said some of the crashes are not reported to police or public works. The sign was built in 1994, a project of the Gateway Sign Committee formed by Salem Mayor R. G. Andersen-Wyckoff.  It was paid for partly by $5,000 grants from the cities of Salem and Keizer, with remaining funding coming from public donations and volunteer time contributions. The frequent damage to the sign began a year after it was built.  “We hope that we can reimagine the future of the welcome sign in a way that preserves its original spirit while addressing concerns about future repair costs,” Smith said. Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post Salem-Keizer’s welcome sign keeps getting destroyed. Officials might just pull the plug appeared first on Salem Reporter.