New Scott County roads to bear names of Missouri governors

BENTON, Mo. -- New streets in Scott County will honor Missouri's gubernatorial history.

During Tuesday's County Commission meeting, Joel Evans, county emergency management director and county developer, presented his idea for naming new streets in the unincorporated parts of the county as part of his activity summary for the month of June.

Evans said in coming up with a policy other than random selection for naming new streets, he first considered using the names of Scott County war veterans.

"But a lot of those names have already been used," he said.

Evans then decided on using the surnames of governors in the order they served the state of Missouri. Those names that are already used as street names in the county or that sound exactly the same as an existing street name will be skipped.

"I think that's a great idea," Presiding Commissioner Jamie Burger said.

The first county road named under the new policy, McNair Lane, is located south of Morley off of US 61. It honors Alexander McNair, who served as the state's first governor from Sept. 18, 1820, until Nov. 15, 1824.

The new naming policy will be used "as long as there isn't some other request for a name," Evans said.

In related business, Evans updated commissioners on addressing activities and ongoing work with the E-911 geographic information system. "We had a couple of spelling errors in the database," he said.

Evans also contacted the county assessor's office to make the same corrections to maintain continuity.

There were also addressing issues with Sandown Lane due to some trailers that were moved but had continued to use the same address at their new location, according to Evans.

In other Scott County news, Scott County was recently praised in a short article in the Missouri County Record, a quarterly publication by the Missouri Association of Counties.

MAC, which provides workers compensation insurance for the county, noted in the article that a workers compensation fund administrator recently congratulated the county for its loss prevention program. The fund administrator said Scott County's program is worthy of serving as a model for other counties.

"I think it's a very good thing for the county because we are providing a safe workplace for our employees and the public we serve," Burger said.

The article notes that in 2002, the county had a 40-percent loss ratio while in the first quarter of this year it is zero.

In addition to making things safer at the courthouse, the program is also saving the county money: the workers compensation insurance premium for 2009 is 51 percent lower than the previous year, according to the article.

Pertinent address:

131 S. Winchester St., Benton, Mo.