Oceanside Harbor facelift

“Don’t worry, we’re not changing the name of the town,” said a City of Oceanside maintenance worker. On April 4, workers were removing the large “OCEANSIDE” letters of the sign seen by boaters as they enter into Oceanside Harbor.

Sitting on a small hill overlooking the harbor, the nine letters, each painted white on blue 4´ x 8´ sheets of ½˝ plywood, have withstood four decades of weather.

Steve Rodriguez, the city’s maintenance supervisor for the harbor, said, “We started receiving a few complaints about it,” even though the city had been touching it up as needed. “It was time,” said Rodriguez.

The new letters were ordered last October, at a cost of $9000. They are made of a polymer sheet similar to what the harbor is now installing around their boat docks to replace wood. By noon, the letters were down and city crews were shoring up each letter’s wood support structure.

“We expect to have the new letters up within a week,” said Rodriguez, but there will be a delay in relighting, as the city is exploring different LED options. The former lighting used fluorescents.

Has anyone ever tried to alter the wording of the sign, as others have done to the “HOLLYWOOD” sign? “Nope,” said one of the workers. “Just scraping stickers off, which flakes the paint off.”