Stolen signs latest problem for Revere DPW

REVERE – Up to $5,000 worth of street signs are missing from the Public Works Department’s Charger Street yard and DPW Superintendent Donald Goodwin thinks the theft is an inside job.
Public Works officials confirmed street and directional signs were missing from the yard’s sign shop Wednesday after noticing losses the last couple of weeks. Goodwin and top department officials are comparing sign work orders and taking an inventory of remaining signs.
Goodwin said the missing signs are worth an estimated $2,000 to $5,000.
“There are no signs of forced entry. It looks like it was done from within,” Goodwin said.
He said there have been problems with sign shop security dating back two months. The shop alarm was not set or only occasionally set between April 1 and mid May. A security camera positioned to monitor the shop’s entrance was misaligned so it was aimed skyward.
Goodwin suspects “spite” on the part of a disgruntled city worker may have motivated the thefts and he suspects the signs were stolen over a period of time. He said power tools in the shop were not stolen.
“I don’t understand it; that’s the frustrating thing,” he said.
The theft is the latest source of unwanted attention for Goodwin and his department.
A confrontation last week with City Councilor John R. Correggio prompted both men to file criminal complaints set for review June 25 in Chelsea District Court. Correggio accused Goodwin of squeezing his neck hard following an exchange of words during a wake at a local funeral home.
Goodwin said he only touched Correggio on the shoulder but acknowledged he is miffed about Correggio’s call for him to resign following last fall’s DPW audit.
The state Auditor’s review released last November recommended DPW inventory control changes and focused on the need for tighter controls over gasoline pumps maintained by the department. The Council requested the audit following a lengthy state Ethics Commission investigation into accusations of DPW employees performing street pipe installation work for private residents.
Two employees resigned in the wake of the probe but their foreman was exonerated of bribery charges. Goodwin’s name came up during Commission hearings but he was not accused of any crime or any mismanagement in relation to the probe or the department.
The missing signs also raise the specter of city theft a half year after city auditors documented misspending in the public library. Former Library Director Robert Rice resigned after the spending discrepancies were found and the probe into library accounts continues with the Suffolk District Attorney’s office spearheading it.
Goodwin suspects the DPW losses could ultimately be significant.
“It could be in the thousands of dollars.”