Redkey to address addresses

REDKEY — The new year may bring a long overdue, improved address numbering system to this community.
Meeting in special session Thursday night, Redkey town attorney John Brooke reported that following up on recommendations from town council members, he had sent a letter to Jay County Commissioners, asking them to have the county’s 911 address system implemented within the corporate boundaries of the town of Redkey.
Adoption of this new uniform address numbering system could mean some new address numbers for homes and businesses in town, Brooke said.
In his letter to the commissioners Brooke explained that the current address numbering situation has been a problem for a number of years, causing confusion and delays in locating homes and businesses in the community.
“There are currently several different numbering systems which are in place. This has caused confusion and has had a negative impact on fire departments, police departments and emergency medical services,” Brooke said.
“It is our understanding that at the time that Jay County established its  911 address system that no such addressing was done for the town of Redkey. We are requesting that you would allow the town to be part of Jay County’s 911 addressing system,” Brooke continued.
The town attorney added that he had already discussed the situation with Milo Miller Jr., president of the Jay County board of commissioners, and he planned to meet soon with Redkey Post-master Tony Hawk as well.
There is a chance that some address numbers will change, but others will stay the same, commented Redkey councilman Jim Funkhouser who has been working on the project, too.
Local newspaper carrier J.C. Morrison said that when he started his route in Redkey, he had a lot of problems  matching homes with addresses. He said that in some cases, houses did not have numbers on them, and in other instances the numbers “were all mixed up.”
“So you can imagine how the ambulance and fire department personnel feel,” Funkhouser said.
In other business at Thursday’s first meeting of the new year, Redkey council members:
•Re-elected Terri Taylor to serve as town council president for 2011. Phil Philebaum was re-elected to serve as vice president.
•Were given assignments to supervise certain departments by Taylor. These included: police, Jon Davis; fire, Philebaum and Taylor; streets, Philebaum; wastewater, Funkhouser; water, Taylor; and parks, David Himes.
Also Funkhouser suggested that Himes help him with the wastewater treatment department duties as Himes was retired and more likely to be available during the daytime hours in Redkey to answer any questions that might come up. Taylor agreed. During 2011, town officials plan to make improvements concerning the separation of storm and sanitary sewers in the community.
•Approved final reading of the town’s 2011 salary ordinance which provides a three percent raise for most town employees. Also included in the new salary ordinance is an extra $500 a year raise for Bill Tressler who was notified in December that he had passed his state water operator’s certification test.
Now that Tressler is certified as a water plant operator, the town will be able to end its contract with part-time employee Michele St. John who is the certified water plant operator for Albany. For the past several years, she has also been working for Redkey in a part-time capacity, approving state-required certification reports.
•Appointed former Redkey council member Doug Stanley to continue serving as the town’s representative on the Jay County Development Corporation and Energize East Central Indiana boards.
•Agreed to retain Brooke as town attorney for another year. His firm will receive a $2,000 retainer fee, and his rate of $85 an hour for extra work will be the same as last year’s. Brooke explained that this was a special reduced rate for the town. He also said that his firm was writing off $4,000 from Redkey’s 2010 bill, so the law firm’s account with Redkey would be starting from zero for 2011.
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