Check out the La Plata County Courthouse. They put up a huge sign, the type you see along the highway. It’s flashing a message about relocation of the Human Services Department. Thing is, if you are standing in front of the courthouse, you can’t read the sign because it’s so dang big. What’s up with that? – Size Matters

The Courthouse does get a lot of traffic. So it makes sense to have a traffic-control device at the entrance, right? Or maybe not.

Action Line, being multi-modal, strolled over to the building to inspect the humongous flashing billboard, which is officially called a mobile Variable Message Sign (VMS).

Sure enough, there it was. A VMS is difficult to miss.

It’s about 12 feet high with an illuminated LED grid 11 feet wide and 6 feet tall – all sitting on a bright orange trailer.

The message rotates thusly: “Human Services Moved/to 10 Burnett Court/In The Durango Tech Center.”

You won’t be able to read that message standing on the sidewalk. But from the street, it’s quite visible.

Which is the whole point of the sign, according to our good friend Lezlie Mayer, director of La Plata County’s Human Services Department.

“We’ve done a lot of advertising, but people might still not know that Human Services has moved to the Tech Center,” she said.

The sign is trying to avoid Lezlie’s worst-case scenario.

“What we didn’t want anyone to pull into a parking spot in front of the Courthouse, feed the parking meter, go through security, only to find that we’re not there. People would get mad.”

As we all know, parking drives locals totally batty, even if it’s only over a couple quarters.

On one hand, there are the skinflints. Action Line has known several crotchety misers who sit in their cars until the meter runs out, just so someone else won’t get “their” time. Seriously.

On the other, there are the temporal relativists. These folks justify not paying for parking because they were “just running in for a sec.”

Invariably, this results in a bright envelope under the windshield wiper.

The folks at the parking department have been begging Action Line to address this (ahem) often “cited” excuse. So heads up, temporal relativists.

It doesn’t matter if you are a busy mom or a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, the “I was just running in for a sec” defense will never, ever, ever get a ticket dismissed. So don’t even try.

You took your chances. Pay the fine and move on. No, there’s no justice in this world.

But let’s get back to the issue of the humongous sign at the courthouse.

It should be noted that the sign wasn’t just for Human Services. It went up a couple weeks ago to inform passers-by about the Building and Planning Department moving to 211 Rockpoint Drive, also in the Tech Center.

You gotta give the county credit for creativity. And it only took staff a couple of minutes to drag the VMS up to the entrance and program the message.

Speaking of messages, Action Line recalls an incident several years ago in Austin, Texas, where hackers got into a VMS and posted the best warning messages ever.

Along a busy road, drivers were advised: “Caution! Zombies Ahead,” “Run For Cold Climates,” “The End Is Near” and “Nazi Zombies Run!”

It’s comforting to know that here in La Plata County, we’re only dealing with Human Services moving to the Tech Center.

Email questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. You can request anonymity if you keep some quarters handy in your car to prevent tickets and a Louisville Slugger if the undead start swarming.