Address changes postponed for Stove Prairie, Buckhorn

By JoAn Bjarko
North Forty News

Had it not been for a volunteer firefighter asking questions at County Commissioner Steve Johnson's citizen meeting in August, road names in the Buckhorn and Stove Prairie area would have been changed with no input from the rural fire department.

A little research determined that the county shelved recommendations from the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department earlier this year in an effort to conclude the consultant's work on the countywide rural addressing project by the end of 2009.

Rist Canyon was not the only one to be bypassed, however. The Larimer County Commissioners made a blanket decision this spring that all appeals to rural addressing changes should be postponed until 2010.

With that direction, addressing consultant Spatial Data Research was ready to change the names of Buckhorn Road and Stove Prairie Road to North County Road 27 in early September. It would have come as a surprise to the fire department, which had not been told its recommendations were not being considered.

Supposedly, the fire department could have appealed in 2010, setting up the possibility that addresses would revert to their former names if commissioners agreed with the appeal.

Once apprised of that possibility by volunteer firefighter Wes Rutt of Stove Prairie, Johnson agreed that it didn't make sense.

"It would be stupid to change the name, appeal and then change it back," Johnson told the North Forty News. The delay, he added, will give the planning staff time to look at addressing ideas from the volunteer fire department.

Planning Director Larry Timm said that the board of commissioners will be asked to budget up to $6,000 to accommodate the schedule change.

At the beginning of the multi-year rural addressing project, the program was touted as a benefit to emergency service providers. In most of rural Larimer County those include the volunteer fire departments.