COMMISSION OKAYS POLICY FOR NAMING ROADS UNDER E-911

JACKSON - The Cape Girardeau County Commission Monday approved a policy for naming presently unnamed roads in the county as part of the implementation of a new Enhanced 911 emergency telephone system.

Members of the E-911 committee appeared before the commission to discuss the naming and numbering of roads now under way by a Columbia based firm, E.T.G. Inc.

Brian Miller, director of emergency operations for the county and the chairman of the committee, explained that every road must be named and every house must have a number for an address.

Miller and Ron Andrews, the county's data processing director and a member of the committee, pointed out that on roads that have numbers the road numbers will be used.

Any roads in cities that need to be named will have to be named by following appropriate guidelines in those towns. He said the 911 committee will only be involved in naming roads in outcounty areas.

Andrews said there are a number of roads around the county that do not have names. He defined a road as any lane that has two or more houses on it.

"In order for 911 to work these roads have got to be named," Andrews told the commission.

Andrews said there were three options that could be used for naming roads, with the least desirable one allowing residents on the roads to suggest ideas. He warned that would be time consuming and difficult to manage since it might be difficult to get a consensus from property owners on what to call a road.

A second approach would be for the 911 committee to come up with a plan for naming roads and make the decisions.

The third option, and the one the committee recommended and the commission endorsed, would be to have the firm doing the addressing to give the committee a list of topic names such as trees, animals, flowers, and rocks. The committee would choose several topics that would be used in various areas of the county.

For example, Andrews said one section of the county might have the names of trees, while another would have flower names.

The addressing firm would have a list of names for each topic that was chosen, and whenever they came to a road that needed to be named they would pick the next available name on the list.

The same lists would be used for naming new roads in the future, Andrews said.

Miller said the committee felt the third option would be the quickest to implement and eliminate confusion in the future.

"It looks to me like that will be by far the best way to go and the quicker way," said Associate Commissioner Leonard Sander.

"I think the third option is by far the best solution," said Associate Commissioner E.C. Younghouse.

Presiding Commissioner Gene Huckstep agreed and stressed the option they picked would be the least controversial.

Last November voters in Cape County approved a monthly charge of $1.35 on residential telephone bills and a slightly higher fee on business phone lines to pay for the improved 911 telephone system. Eventually the fee will be decreased once a system is in place and funds are only needed for maintenance.

The city of Cape Girardeau has had the emergency phone system for several years, but Jackson and outcounty residents do not have the service.

One of the most time consuming parts of the implementation phase is developing addresses for all residences in the county. The enhanced system will list the address of where the call is coming from on a computer screen to expedite emergency service.

The new system should be operational late next year.