NORTHWEST ARKANSAS — Blue road signs cropping up near Compton show Newton County is closer to establishing physical addresses for its residents, but officials don’t know exactly when the project will be finished. Newton is the last county in Arkansas to use postal route and box or highway contract routes rather than physical addresses.
It’s making the switch so that emergency workers and delivery drivers can stop relying on landmarks or custom maps. The move to addresses also will clear the way for the county to implement enhanced 911 service for those with telephone land lines.
The blue signs show numbers the county has assigned to roads, some of which are known by informal names.
Pattie Mills, director of Newton County emergency management, said she couldn’t guess when the project will be finished because there are too many variables, including the potential for road workers to be called away for other duties.
“Newton County’s got 8,300 people, over 3,000 miles of dirt road and forest service roads, and I’ve got two guys doing it,” she said. “Two guys and one truck.”
The county Road Department employees started installing the signs Monday and hope to be finished by the end of summer. The installation, which costs about $52 per sign, marks the halfway point of a five-year project that began in 2009,Mills said. She couldn’t say how many signs the county is installing.
While the signs are being installed, the Arkansas Geographic Information Office is reviewing updated county maps, Mills said. Once the maps are finished, she said, the proposed addresses will be presented to the U.S. Postal Service.
After a postal service review, county residents will be presented with their new addresses, Mills said. It’s not been determined how the notifications will occur.
Once addresses are inplace, the county will ask residents to approve a service charge to pay the cost of enhanced 911 service, Mills said. That will require a vote.
In Washington County, enhanced 911 service is funded by a 5 percent surcharge on monthly basic phone bills, according to the county’s website.
Jonathan Duran, a geographic information system analyst with the state, is helping Newton County with technical aspects of creating digital maps. Duran said county officials began by marking structures on aerial photographs then verifying the structures existed. The structures were given preliminary addresses based on 1,000 intervals per mile, meaning an address could be assigned every 5.28 feet.
He said he thinks the project can be done by year-end but shared Mills’ hesitancy to offer a definitive completion date.
“There’s what I hope and then there’s reality, because who knows what kind of snags we’ll hit along the way,” Duran said.
Newton County Sheriff Keith Slape said he’s pleased with the progress because physical addresses will mean a reduction in the time it takes emergency personnelto respond to a call.
Physical addresses also will make it possible to have enhanced 911 service, which means dispatchers will be able to tell the origin of a land line 911 call, even if the person hangs up or can’t provide his location. The county already has that capability for emergency calls placed on mobile phones, a service it implemented in August.
Currently, emergency calls placed in Newton County are forwarded to the sheriff’s office by local phone provider Ritter Communications, said Bob Mouser, the company’s president.
If county residents approve an enhanced 911 service charge, the county will be able to pay to have the system set up equipment that will provide dispatchers with the origin of the 911 call. The company will collect the charge through monthly bills, but it will pass the money on to the county.
Because Newton County doesn’t have physical addresses, Ritter Communications staff had to develop an internal mapping system for its customers, Mouser said. Physical addresses will make it easier for everyone.
“We’re going to do everything we can to help them,” he said.
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Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/05/2012