Road Names Stir Up Dust

Don’t shoot the man at the door, even if he suggests naming your new road “Gay Acres.” He’s a bona fide road hunter paid by Kootenai County to find every unnamed or duplicately named road and unaddressed house in the county.

He carries a six-page list of street names the public has suggested to the planning office since October. Names such as Banana and Guess Where, Lovers Lane, Poweroutage and, yes, Gay Acres.

If those names please you as much as fingernails on a blackboard, you’re not alone.

“A third of them won’t stand up,” Chuck Finan says. “I didn’t think it would be so adversarial.”

Chuck’s an associate planner for the county and a jovial guy who can’t help chuckling at how people react to the names proposed for their streets.

“There’ve been fights. It’s just bloody sometimes,” he says. “We had a couple of men in the parking lot having a jaw fight over one name.”

Well, how do you feel about “Songbird Lane”?

The county launched the road-finding and naming project to improve the emergency response system. Chuck figures Kootenai County has about 300 uncharted roads that support thousands of residents. Those people are hard for emergency crews to find.

“Now, people say, ‘Take a left at the pine tree and right at the big red barn,”’ he says.

To prepare for the project, Chuck and senior planner Rand Wichman started a list of names. Chuck went geographical and historical. Rand went for family. Then they asked the public for help because they still needed 500 or more.

In came suggestions such as Billybob, Dunebuggie, Faretheewell and Etuk; John Denver, Gosport, Fortyniner and Kickapoo Juice; So-Long, Pothole, Ruddy Duck and Rolls Royce.

The geo-researchers started ferreting out roads in the south end of the county last week. They informally suggest names to the residents, who will have a fair chance to reject them after formal notification by mail. If a majority of residents reject the proposed name, the process will start over with a new name.

Rejection happens all the time.

“It’s just bizarre to us that people get that emotional over road names,” Rand says. “As much stock as they put on road names, you’d think they buy their homes based on the name of the street.”

Rand and Chuck still are collecting potential street names. Send your suggestions to the Kootenai County Planning Department, 400 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene, ID 83816-9000.

Sitter sense

It’s New Year’s Eve, folks, and good baby sitters are worth paying well.

Kootenai Medical Center is a chapter of Safe Sitter Inc., and offers these tips for hiring a sitter on New Year’s Eve.

Match the length of your time out to the age and experience of your sitter. Be honest about how late you’ll be.

Have a designated driver take the sitter home. Call if you’ll be late. Leave hats, noisemakers and fun stuff for your kids and the sitter. Take the same safety measures you do any other night out.

Then, have fun and pay your sitter well - $2 an hour for one child and $3 an hour for more.

Shake it, baby

There’s nothing like the rhythms of the Coeur d’Alene Marimba Band to shake in the new year. The band and Moments of Clarity, a hot newish local group, will keep feet jumping tonight in Coeur d’Alene’s Sorensen Elementary gym from 8 p.m. to midnight. Tickets are $6 at the door or $5 at The Bookseller all day.

What’s your favorite New Year’s Eve tradition? I like to stand outside and bang on a saucepan at midnight. What other night can you do that? Share your tradition with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo