Politics & Government
Cougar Paw Prints to Grace New City Street Signs
It will take about 10 years to replace all the old signs with ones that have Cougar paw prints on them.
Manassas Park’s 1,200 street signs will get a makeover under a city plan to replace the standard signs with ones that include a special city emblem to help distinguish the city from the surrounding jurisdictions.
The Manassas Park City Council unanimously voted to approve a staff plan to place a feline paw print, like the one used to represent the school’s Cougar mascot, on the signs that bear street names. Traffic signs be not be affected. The print will look something like the paw print at the top of the school district’s athletics web page.
Because the city is surrounded by other jurisdictions, like the city of Manassas and Prince William County, boundary lines are sometimes blurred and the casual passerby often doesn’t know they are driving through the community, said Manassas Park City Manager Jim Zumwalt. For example, it’s easy to drive south on Route 28 through Manassas Park and not recognize you are actually in the city.
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Replacing all the signs at once would be costly, said Zumwalt, who suggested that the city erect the Cougar Paw street signs once the old ones wear out or are damaged.
“We could have all the signs changed over in about a decade or so,” Zumwalt told the governing body. “It is a small project that will have a long-lasting impact.”
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The council chose the paw print over two other options: a copy of the city seal or the logo used for the Community Center. Members generally agreed that the Cougar paw was closely associated with the community because of its wide use by the school district. The city seal would not work because it could not be reproduced large enough to be easily recognized.
In other news, the city also approved a plan to allow Zumwalt to use $57,200 in unspent funds at the end of the year to replace money that was mistakenly taken out of the city fire department’s budget during the budget writing process earlier this year. The money would come from lapsed salaries line items and other funds that normally accrue during the fiscal year, Zumwalt said.