EDITORIAL
Soon the City of Rockdale will be asking the public for input on a proposal to require homeowners to display reflective numbers. The details are yet to be worked out after an initial discussion at last week’s city council meeting. No action was taken as the council wants to hear what the public thinks about the idea.
The number one question was “why?” or, more specifically, “why now?”
Obviously, Rockdale has gotten along without mandating house numbers since Ulysses S. Grant was president.
Barbara Holly, code enforcement officer, explained the concept is to make it easier for first responders to locate addresses to which they are responding, especially at night.
If you drive around a bit you’d be surprised at the number of Rockdale locations which don’t have numbers. You can always “count down by twos” from the last house you see with a number but sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. “And I’ve seen even and odd numbers on the same side of the street,” Williams said.
As for emergency crews being home folks, City Manager Chris Whittaker pointed out none of the current ambulance personnel reside in Rockdale. The proposal, as presented last week, called for 6-inch reflective numbers to be placed on the front of the house.
Some members of the council noted many houses already have 4-inch numbers or have numbers on malboxes or painted on the curb. They wondered why those options wouldn’t fulfill the goal of making addresses readily apparent.
There was also some talk about the expense of going to the larger six-inch numbers. If the city decided to go with 4-inch numbers, they are available in Rockdale for a dollar each. That’s $4 maximum.
It’s going to be a bit of a hassle for some of us to get them installed. But nothing like the hassle some dark night when you’re having a heart attack and the ambulance passes you up because there’s no house number.—M.B.
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