A $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the person who is stealing street signs and other property from West Penn Township.

Over the last few months, township Roadmaster Jeremy Frable estimated that thousands of dollars worth of signs have been stolen.

“We have been having an issue with street signs,” Frable told supervisors at Monday’s meeting. “They are stealing signs left and right.”

He noted that the thefts are occurring in all areas of the township.

“Before they were taking street name signs and speed limit signs — but now they are hitting the stop signs,” Frable said. “That’s bad if somebody goes through a stop sign.”

Even traffic cones are being stolen, he said.

“They are taking everything,” Frable said.

Supervisors’ Chairman Tony Prudenti asked whether the signs were being taken to scrapyards for money.

Frable said there are no records of the signs at scrap yards.

“Our initials are on them and everything,” he said.

The most recent thefts occurred last week.

“And now whoever is doing it is actually using a cordless grinder and just grinding the bolts right off,” Frable noted. “It probably takes them a couple seconds. I’ve been using the theft proof bolts. It’s not just in our township.”

“Burn ban” signs that were recently placed were lifted, too.

“I had the guys go out and take them down and they said that six of them were missing,” Frable said.

Each sign and post costs about $150.

He explained that police are aware of the situation and are investigating.

“I’m asking the public to keep their eyes open. We gotta catch them. It’s costing the township thousands of dollars,” Frable said.

“The money is one thing. The thing that gets me is the possible deaths” due to the removal of stop signs at intersections, Prudenti said.

Prudenti suggested offering a reward, an idea that was supported by supervisors Glenn Hummel and Kyle Kester.

“It should be an attractive reward,” Kester said.

After some discussion, the board unanimously approved offering the $1,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of the person stealing the signs or any other township property.