May 27, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
Three months after giving the DeKalb County Emergency Communications District (E911) Board sole authority to name private roads for 911 addressing and mapping purposes, the county commission has reversed course and now wants final say on such road names assigned by E911.
The issue was raised by fifth district commissioner Jerry Adcock during Tuesday night’s regular monthly meeting of the county commission. Adcock is upset that the 911 board recently named a private road over the objections of a longtime property owner there. But the road also serves other properties. The controversy is over naming the road Birdie Lane.
“That’s a right of way. Its privately owned property and the person paying the taxes didn’t get to name it (road),” said Adcock.
The county commission Tuesday night voted 10 to 4 to take back the authority it had given to 911 in February and to require that any names assigned to private drives/roads by the 911 Board be submitted to the county commission for final approval. The motion was made by Jerry Adcock. Dennis Slager offered a second to the motion. All voted in favor except Matt Adcock, Sabrina Farler, Jeff Barnes, and Scott Little.
Although the county commission has the sole authority to name “county roads” the practice of naming private roads for 911 addressing and mapping purposes is something the 911 Board has done for a long time even though it had not been officially delegated that authority by the county commission. But in February 911 Director Brad Mullinax, on behalf of the 911 Board, sought and was granted that authority from the county commission because of the Birdie Lane controversy.
According to Mullinax, the landowners could not agree on what name the E911 Board should assign to this private road into their properties.
“When we have a driveway with multiple parcels of land and two or more houses off that driveway it is in the best interest of public safety to name that driveway a private drive, not for the purposes of maintaining the road, but to be able to get emergency services there. In this type of case the road needs to be named with addresses assigned to it and a sign posted so the road can be identifiable as a private drive and shown on the 911 map,” said Mullinax.
“In this particular case, we asked the landowners to come up with a name but not all them agreed so we decided to bring this to your attention since we do not have the authority to name roads. But if you give us this authority we will continue to do our due diligence going forward to contact each affected property owner to try and make the name we assign satisfactory to them,” said Mullinax at the February meeting.
The DeKalb County Emergency Communications District (E-911) Board is authorized by the state to assign addresses and to make changes when necessary to conform with state standards for 911 mapping but the authority to name public and private roads and streets, including those in residential developments, is exclusively vested in the legislative bodies (county commissions) of counties for unincorporated areas, and municipalities within their incorporated boundaries, in a manner acceptable to the US Postal Service.
However, the legislative bodies (county commissions) may delegate the authority to the Emergency Communications District, provided that the legislative body shall approve road or street name changes made by the district under such terms as the legislative body may determine.