During a recent Ferron City Council Meeting, Jeff Guymon, network engineer, gave a presentation concerning the proposed changes to Ferron City residents during the countywide addressing standardization. Guymon explained that the utility companies, package delivery companies, along with emergency services, have encountered a great deal of discrepancy in the addresses of county residents. The system of post office boxes has stalled the procedure from taking place sooner, but many other problems are associated with incorrect street addresses.
In order to standardize the street addresses and bring the county’s data base into agreement with other data bases, Guymon has done extensive mapping and locating residences throughout the county. GPS work has been done to correctly indicate the roads. In his capacity as network engineer for the Emery County Information Technology department, it has been Guymon’s duty to organize this project and get the transition completed.
Guymon informed the Ferron City Council that there were two ways to approach the situation as far as the town of Ferron was concerned. The first option is the odd/even method for addressing. This would effect fewer residences of Ferron, but the town would still not be in line with the other towns of Emery County. The second option would effect twice as many residences, but would bring the town into alignment with the remainder of the county. The largest portion of the problems lie in the outskirts of the towns. For residents inside city limits, the changes should be minimal. “The safety issues alone are worth the inconvenience,” said Guymon.
Guymon was requesting that the council enter into a memorandum of understanding on the ordinance, which is in draft form and was prepared by Allen Thorpe, authorizing the county to be the responsible party for the new standardized addresses. The ordinance would require any new buildings to contact Emery County for their designated address. The county’s computer system would locate the property and assign the number that would coordinate with the location.
Guymon noted that many towns in the county have streets with the same name, several houses with the same numbers, and houses with numbers out of sequence. This reorganization will solve many of the problems associated with the conflicting addresses. In the past, there have been several incidents in which the correct house could not be located by emergency services.
In an attempt to educate the public, Guymon is visiting each town council meeting with the maps and changes and each town will have them available for the public. Before the changes are implemented, public hearings will be held to take comments from county residents. County officials will be at the public hearings to answer questions. Up to this point, Emery has been visited and held the public hearing. Emery will be the least effected by these changes and no negative comments were aired.
Councilperson Jo Sansevero asked Guymon who would be responsible for notification to mortgage companies and utilities. Guymon responded by saying the responsibilities would be split between the county and the property owner. The county will notify all emergency services and utilities. The property owner would be responsible for notifying personal accounts.
Guymon also noted that County Recorder Dixie Swasey is researching methods of transition and will make the recommendation for the smoothest way to accomplish the changes in relation to mortgage companies involved with property owners. One of the most important topics is to inform the mortgage holders that the property has not changed, but that the county is reorganizing the address system.
Emery County’s IT department consists of Mick Robinson, Lee Rasmussen, Guymon and Sherman D. Miller, who has been doing much of the work on this project. The Ferron City Council tentatively accepted the proposal and scheduled their public hearing for July 22 at 6 p.m.