More road names & address nos. changing

Any hope the Board of Selectmen had about wrapping up its ongoing project of renaming and renumbering town roads and street addresses to assist the state’s Enhanced-911 system were dashed last night when about 60 people filled a small meeting room in the town office building to raise concerns about some of the proposed changes.

Resident Kathleen Fogerty complained that the selectmen's plans to renumber the residences on her street did not make sense. She said that at 329 Treshing Mill Road, her house was the lowest address and the first house on the street so there was no reason to change it.

But Tim Scott, Stacey Zalenski and Mike Kelleher of the state's "E-911" system explained that when public safety officials from other towns are called into Sanbornton for an emergency, they could get confused if they are looking for a lower address number at the beginning of the street.

Fogerty also said she didn't understand the need to rename the four sections of Threshing Mill Road but Selectboard Chairman Andrew Livernois stressed the same point he has at the previous hearings on the subject, which is that the state 911 officials recommend against having similar sounding road names in a town to avoid confusion.

LIvernois did apologize to Fogerty on behalf of the board for not telling residents who had received a notice several months ago that their roads names might be changing that their house numbers might also be altered around the same time. But the board only got the news itself last month, he said.

Last night's hearing was just the latest in a series the Selectboard has held on the issue of road changes in the last year. So far about 30 road names have been changed after hearings allowed residents to voice their concerns, and in some cases, to offer alternative designations.

Last month, Fire Chief John DeSilva told the board the E-911 people wanted to change several other road names and some address numbers as well.

At last night's meeting, some of the changes took place with little discussion.

After an initial debate, the selectmen changed the name of Threshing Mill Road to Willow Road.

They also agreed to renumber a handful of addresses on Daniel Webster Highway/Route 3 to go along with Tilton's new numbering system for what that town has recently decided to rename "Laconia Road." (The road itself in in Tilton, although some of the properties along it are in Sanbornton, LIvernois explained.)

The board accepted a petition from residents to change the newly renamed Elm Drive to Moose Run Drive.

It also put off a decision on changing the name of a section of Old Range Road until town officials could look at simply changing the street designation of the only house on the road, and put off renaming a section of Pound Road until more information could be gathered.

The meeting also didn't take long to turn thumbs down to the idea of changing the names of Bay Road, Upper Bay Road and Lower Bay Road to avoid confusion, as well as Upper Smith Road and Lower Smith Road, and Hermit Woods Road and Hermit Lake Road.

Chief DeSilva said he did not see a problem with the current designations.

At the end of the meeting, Town Administrator Bob Veloski presented the board with a list of another 100-plus addresses the E-911 officials want to change since their numbers are out of sequence, inappropriately spaced from other street addresses, on the wrong side of the road or otherwise confusing.

At Chief DeSilva's suggestion, the board agreed to allow him to hire a part-time employee using the town's 911 fund to oversee the project of getting in touch with each property owner and working out an agreeable solution.