January 17, 2008
County Addressing System Getting Ready

By Dave Maxwell

The majority of business and dwelling unit addresses in Lincoln County are going to be changed beginning sometime this month. That was the message of County Planning Director, Clint Wertz, at the Alamo Town Board meeting January 10. The project compliments the new enhanced 911 system the County is putting into place. With a countywide addressing grid, any 911 call can be plotted on a map and emergency services can be quickly dispatched to the correct location. The key, Wertz said, “as to what will be given an address number is if there is a telephone at the location.” Agricultural properties and seasonal dwellings will also be numbered. The database of addresses will be merged with the 911 system.

Wertz said the plan has room for 1,000 addresses per mile in outlying areas and possibly 100 addresses per mile inside town boundaries. “Numbers are going to change,” he said, “and it might work out that you may end up with a number that is two or three digits off from the next number on the block, but they’re going to run in sequence.”

Wertz told the Alamo Town Board that he planned to use the intersection of Broadway and U.S. Highway 93, at the Chevron station, as the zero point for the town of Alamo and have everything be a north or south address. He also suggested renaming streets in Alamo that have “directional suffix’s,” i.e., lst South, 2nd North, 2nd West, etc, and just have lst, 2nd, 3rd street, instead.

Using family names for streets and roads is something Wertz particularly discourages. It could be confusing, or there might even be conflicts between people not wanting to have the road named for a certain family. An example Wertz mentioned, on a current existing County map, there is a name designating a certain road. However, in talking to people who live along that road, Wertz found that each family refers to the name of the road as being named after their family. This is the type of problem the addressing system is designed to resolve.

Wertz said the firm of Gnomon Inc., of Carson City, which has worked on the same type of project in a several other Nevada counties, is expected to begin working on the address changes by the end of January. The town of Pioche will be first, followed by Alamo, Panaca and Rachel. The City of Caliente has a system of their own that with a few minor adjustments, Wertz said, works very well. It can easily be grafted into the countywide 911 system. Therefore, Caliente is not included in this first go-round. A few addresses will also have to be assigned for the Toquop and Coyote Springs area.

He said what has to be done first is to “make sure we get all of the dwelling units. Any place where somebody physically lives, and this includes the group quarters like the Youth Center, the Detention Center, etc.” There are about 1600 dwelling units in Lincoln County that will need addresses. He estimated another 300-400 other addresses will be needed for commercial and industrial locations. “Even cell towers and other utility facilities will be given an address, too,” he said. Wertz said, “We’re looking at about 1,000 addresses, 200-300 in each town.”

Wertz said he is currently working on a letter to be bulk mailed to all residents of Lincoln County involving “Frequently Asked Questions.” The intent is to, “answer as many questions as to how the system is all going to work.” Questions such as:

• Do residents have to put their own numbers up?
• Who is going to pay for the number?
• Is there a timetable for putting the number up?
•  Will my mailing address change? 
• Who is going to contact my mortgage company, service providers, local utility companies, etc.?

There is a whole realm of questions, Wertz said, to be answered in the FAQ sheet. “I’m going to make it as easy as possible for everyone to convert to the system so that residents have to do as little as possible.” Post office box mail delivery will not be affected, unless the physical address of the dwelling unit or business changes. Then a new physical address card will have to be filed with the post office.

Highway Contract Mail Routes (HC) will be changed to match the new official numbering system.

All of this information will also be included on Lincoln County’s official website as soon as it becomes operational.