Local News in Brief : Westminster : City to Replace Stolen ‘Little Saigon’ Signs

The city today will replace six “Little Saigon” road signs that were either stolen or defaced last week, city employees said.

Gerard Charles, an engineering technician with Westminster’s Public Works Department, said that on Jan. 25--2 days after they were installed--someone dug up five signs attached to 8-foot aluminum posts. Another sign was dented and scratched. The signs pointed the way to the large Vietnamese business district in Westminster and Garden Grove.

Charles said the department believes that the thefts and vandalism were motivated by desire for a souvenir or as a prank, and not racism. “Why would people want to take a whole sign?” he asked. “If it was racial, they would spray-paint it,” he added.

Because traffic signs are stolen all the time and no one saw the thefts or vandalism, the department will not file reports with the police, Charles said. The 20 signs in the city were paid for by the Vietnamese community, he said. A state Department of Transportation representative said someone draped a U.S. flag over a Little Saigon sign on the Garden Grove Freeway on Tuesday.

“We’re treating it as an act of vandalism,” said Court Burrell, Caltrans’ deputy district director for traffic operations. “That (vandalism) happens fairly often,” he said.