When is a post not a post?

....When it looks like a, well, when it looks phallic.

Some Keizer residents are saying their city has installed posts that have an unnerving resemblance to male genitalia.

The 52 cement posts were installed on the sidewalk as part of a beautification project at Lockhaven Drive and River Road N. Also included is landscaping and flagstone-patterned sidewalks, said Nate Brown, the Keizer community development director.

The 30-inch posts cost $18,000 and are meant to protect pedestrians from traffic, Brown said.

Keizer resident Barbara Henke has taken to calling the spot "penis point." "It looks like little woody soldiers all at attention," Henke said. "It's hysterical."

Gordon Miller agreed. "They're ugly," he said. "They look like they ought to be protecting some government building from the terrorists."

Darryel Bibelheimer, on the other hand, drives by the posts about once a day. "I don't pay that much attention to them," he said.

Keizer's River Road Renaissance Advisory Committee, the group that selected the posts, discussed the complaints at its June 26 meeting and proposed the city solve the problem by affixing a metal collar around the groove encircling the top of each post. Chains would connect the collars. That could cost about $7,000 and is expected to be completed this summer.

"If that doesn't do the trick, we'll just have to replace them," Keizer City Manger Chris Eppley said.