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Sign vendors pitch U.S.‑made Watchfire units after older message centers fail
Summary
Tri State Signs and Watchfire representatives told trustees that the township’s three existing electronic message centers are beyond repair and proposed replacing the cabinets with Watchfire equipment (U.S.‑made) and locally manufactured static faces; Tri State offered a rough estimate of about $42,000 per sign.
Fairfield Township trustees received a vendor presentation Tuesday on three failing municipal electronic message signs and heard a proposal to replace the electronic cabinets with Watchfire units supported by local fabrication for the static sign faces.
Steve Weeks of Tri State Signs told the board the existing signs are no longer repairable and that the original manufacturer provides no effective parts support. “We really can get no support from Stewart signs at all. They are bottom line is they're not repairable,” Weeks said, describing repeated service attempts and parts shortages. He proposed removing the existing electronic message centers and installing Watchfire LED cabinets and local static signage to return all three monuments to service.
Chris Rose, a Watchfire representative, described the company’s U.S. manufacturing, vendor guarantees and support network. “Watchfire started as Time O Matic … We have 70,000 of these signs in The United States,” Rose said, and he highlighted a five‑year parts guarantee and a minimum of 10 years of product support as reasons to buy domestically supported hardware.
Budget and procurement: Tri State provided a budgetary estimate in the discussion of roughly $42,000 per sign (estimate noted as preliminary and subject to cooperative‑pricing options). Vendors said pricing can improve if the township uses an existing purchasing cooperative agreement (the presentation cited Qualis Group and state cooperative terms as potential avenues to reduce lead time and cost). Vendors also discussed pixel pitch and brightness (nits) and gave trustees a demonstration unit.
Next steps: Trustees asked staff to collect formal quotes, check purchasing‑cooperative pricing and return competitive estimates with procurement options. Vendors offered installation timelines measured in weeks after order placement and suggested the township could see installed units in a matter of weeks to a few months depending on configuration and cooperative pricing.
Ending: The board did not authorize purchase Tuesday; staff will return with formal bids and cooperative‑pricing options.
