By Liz Beavers
Tribune Managing Editor

KEYSER — The Mineral County Commissioners today will be moving one step closer to city-style street addressing when they officially confirm the names of all the roads in the county.
Mineral County residents had until Sept. 1 to petition for any name changes or to request a specific name for any unnamed roads, according to Dennis McGann, coordinator of the Mineral County Street Mapping and Addressing Project.
Today, the 1,300-plus names and any changes will be finalized by the commissioners prior to the next step in the project.
The countywide project, which has been in the works for several years, is designed to give every Mineral County residence a city-style address — a  number and a street name — in order to make the property more easily identifiable in case of emergency.
Any roads with duplicate names, or similar sounding names, within the same fire and rescue jurisdiction must be renamed in order to avoid confusion. Roadside mailbox numbers will also be eliminated.
Monday, McGann said once the commissioners confirm the address changes, he will cross reference the old and new statistics, and the finalized list will be sent to the Postal Service in Charleston. There, two employees will have the tedious task of keying in each individual address in Mineral County.
“They’ll get back to us and say, ‘yes, you can change this,’ or ‘no you can’t,’” he said, adding that the process could take “anywhere from 30 days to 18 months.”
Once the Postal Service signs off on the project, Mineral County residents will begin receiving notices of their permanent addresses.
McGann said the notices won’t be mailed all at once, but will be delivered “zip code by zip code, starting with the smaller areas first.”
Residents may still view the list of proposed names  at www.mcwvaddressing.com.
According to Marc Bashoor, director of the Mineral County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, once the names are confirmed by the commissioners, no changes may be made for a period of four years.
The commissioners will be confirming the names only for those roads located outside the county’s five municipalities. McGann said he will be meeting soon with elected officials in Keyser, Elk Garden, Carpendale, Ridgeley and Piedmont, who will confirm any changes to be made in their respective city limits.
The commission meeting gets underway at 4:30 p.m. today, but the street mapping hearing is scheduled at 6 p.m. in the Mineral County Courthouse.
For further information on the project, e-mail McGann at mcaddressing@gmail.com.