What’s in a name?

If it includes Devil, it could be trouble

By FRITZ MAYER

COCHECTON, NY — No one seems to covet the sign across the way, Bernas Road. Nor does there seem to be much demand for the nearby signs of Tomel Road or Shortcut Road. But Devils Road, that’s another matter entirely.

Every time town workers replace the two signs on either end of the road, someone, or perhaps several people, steal them. Sometimes, the signs stay up for a few months; sometimes, they’re only up for a couple of weeks. But they always go missing. It’s beginning to annoy town officials, who complain about the cost of repeatedly replacing the signs, which can run to about $100 each. Moreover, it’s dangerous because it might cause delays to responders summoned to an emergency on Devils Road.

Supervisor Sal Indelicato speculated in early April that it was probably not different people making off with the signs each time. He suspected it was one or two culprits, who are having a sort of contest going with the town. But the town board wanted to bring the game to an end.

At the town meeting on April 9, the board agreed to move forward with a plan to change the name of the road to Morris Katzoff, in honor of a late long-time judge who lived on Devils Road?his widow Elaine lives there still.

But there was a problem with the plan. While Elaine was pleased that the board wished to honor her husband, she said she had absolutely no desire to go through the aggravation of changing her address. At the Cochecton town meeting on May 14, Elaine told lawmakers, “I don’t want to do it.”

Several neighbors echoed the sentiment and quickly offered a series of suggestions as to how the matter could be better handled: the sign could be welded to the pole rather than bolted, cement could be put at the base of the pole so that it would be too heavy to steal or the sign could be put up high in a tree, as was done at Skinner’s Falls.

Finally, it was decided that if two names could be put on the sign, Devils Road and Morris Katzoff Road, as is done in many municipalities of the state, the sign might no longer be attractive to the sign-stealing vandals. Morris could be duly honored and the dozen or so residents of the road would not have to go through the hassle of changing their addresses.

Deputy supervisor Larry Richardson, who has been filling in as supervisor since Indelicato suffered a stroke on April 11, said he would talk to the county’s 911 Emergency Control Center to see if this solution would work for them.