Area resident airs concerns on confusion over address

The Franklin County Board of Supervisors heard from an area resident — Stephanie Beach — regarding confusion surround her address at the panel’s Monday, May 15 business meeting.
Beach’s home is located on a National Forest Service road — NFS-123 — which is also known locally as Hagan-Pate Road.
Beach said the primary concern with her address includes first responders might not be able to find the residence in the event of an emergency as the location — when put into a GPS program — ends up in an entirely different site.

Presently, her mailing address is listed as NFS-123, and that is also how the road is listed on the county maps.
However, on other internet-based maps, the road is listed as Hagan-Pate Road.

Because of this discrepancy, Beach said she is unable to receive packages from Federal Express or United Parcel Service.
In response to the concern, Board President Jimmie “Bodi” Bass said he would make sure the road was put in the 9-1-1 system correctly.

Additionally, the board voted to erect a blue street sign with the correct road name — NFS-123 — so emergency vehicles could find more easily find the location.

In other action to come before the board, the panel considered the following:

• Heard from Tax Assessor-Collector Talina King Matthews that military service veterans, who are 70 percent or more disabled, will be eligible for $1 tags beginning in July due to a recently adopted legislative change.

“Currently, you have to be (a veteran with) 100 percent permanent and total disability and service connected to get the dollar tag,” she said. “Well, in this past legislative session, lawmakers have changed that, so more veterans will be getting the tags. It’s now 70 (percent) or more disability, and you don’t have to be permanently disabled anymore.
“Those participants get (tags for) two vehicles and one motorcycle. This new law change will require more of participants.
“That taxpayer will have to provide us with a yearly letter to maintain that he or she is still at 70 percent or more disabled, because the Veterans’ Affairs board does yearly updates on those.”

Matthews also informed supervisors that widows — those who have not remarried — of veterans killed in the line of duty will be eligible for immediate application for homestead exemption, also beginning in July.

• Heard from county engineer Mike McKenzie about options to fix a portion of a guardrail on Bunkley Road damaged by an 18-wheeler that jackknifed on the thoroughfare.

“We rarely have this kind of thing happen,” he said.

“Option one is, y’all just go down there and fix it yourself. And your answer is probably going to be ‘I don’t have the stuff to do it myself.’

“Option two is call somebody at a guardrail company to come fix it for you, right? They aren’t going to touch it … without replacing the entire thing. It’s a liability issue.

“If they touch it, then they accept liability for the complete assembly. So the only way to get anything done is to replace the entire thing.”

Bass asked if the Office of State Aid Road Construction would be in approval if the county did fix the damage, as he had some guardrails available for use.

McKenzie said the county could fix it, but it would be hard to get reimbursed for it if they did.
Upon looking at the damage, board attorney Bill Halford advised to have a guardrail company do the work.

“The safety issue is immediate,” he said.

The panel asked McKenzie to get quotes on having the guardrails replaced.

The next meeting for the Franklin County Board of Supervisors will be held at 9 a.m., Monday, June 5 at the courthouse in Meadville.