A county street construction sign became into a political sign this morning after the message it displayed was changed to support Arizona’s new immigration law.
A Pima County Transportation inspector noticed the traffic sign, on West Ina Road near North La Cañada Road, was no longer warning drivers about the widening project ahead, but instead telling them “SB1070 Rules. Import illegals back to Mexico” at 6 this morning.
The sign, owned by Highway Technologies and deployed as part of the widening work, was changed back to a traffic advisory by 7 a.m.
“Somebody removed one of the locks and reprogrammed it,” said Bobby Robbins, Highway Technologies manager.
That has led the company to suspect it is the work of a former employee, because the lock was broken and the passcode to change the message on the sign was used.
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“They knew how to space between letters and go from lower to uppercase,” Robins said.
The company put a different type of lock on the device, and changed the passcode.
The fix came at no extra cost to the county, which is paying $13.2 million for the widening work on La Cañada from Ina Road to Calle Concordia, said Priscilla Cornelio, Pima County Transportation director.
The job wasn’t done from a remote connection, she said. “Somebody has to come on site to literally open up signage to change it.”
It’s not the first time a sign has been altered from its public message to one a little more personal.
Just last week another of Highway Technologies’ signs was changed on a west side project, Robbins said. But the topic was less political.
In the summer of 2006 the city of Tucson used a Trafficade Service Inc. sign on North Alvernon Way. One day, the message was supplemented with an advertisement for a local business — also the work of hackers, the city said at the time.
Contact reporter Andrea Kelly at akelly@azstarnet.com or 807-7790
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