Rather than sandwich boards on the Town Green or rotating plastic letters on the Mulvey Center sign, town leaders are considering upgrading to an electronic sign that could provide emergency messages to the community and offer a place for posting rotating community event notices. The cost is estimated to start at $30,000.

To help support the community project, the Westbrook Foundation has already given the town a $15,000 grant to support its procurement.

Last year, the Board of Selectmen formed a Sign Committee composed of Jill Brainerd of the Selectmen’s office, Traffic Authority Chair Bonnie Palermo, and Emergency Management Director Don Izzo to study the options and make recommendations to the board. Over the past few months, the committee has studied several options.

At the May 26 Board of Selectmen meeting, Committee Chair Palermo presented their recommendation. It began with her overview of the committee’s study process. She then informed the selectmen that the group’s preferred sign product was from Watchfire.

Tucker Reynolds of Westbrook’s Lighthouse Signs gave a Powerpoint presentation that included a mock-up of what a typical sign installation might look like if it were installed at the Mulvey Center. The new LED sign would replace the existing sign with changeable plastic letters installed there now. He estimated that the cost to install one sign would be at least $30,000.

The cost estimate doesn’t include the installation cost for electrical supply, external sign lighting, or of a brick and masonry structure in which to set the new electronic sign.

Evan Walsh of Watchfire spoke about his company and clients. After a question and answer period, he agreed he would provide more information to the selectmen on the savings the town could expect if more than one sign were bought at the same time.

As envisioned, the sign would be similar to those already installed in the towns of Old Saybrook and Clinton.

At the close of the meeting, the selectmen did not take any action pending receipt of additional information from Watchfire’s Walsh.

Due to the cost of the estimated sign product, Finance Director Andrew Urban confirmed that the town would need to get quotes from several providers or would have to publicly bid it out.