RIB MOUNTAIN, WI (WSAU) — The Town of Rib Mountain has made the decision to join the uniform addressing project in Marathon County after fighting against it for two years.
An informational meeting was held at town’s municipal center to inform residents of the addressing changes coming in the fall. Town Chairman Allen Opall explains why the town is not taking any further action on the issue.
“We exhausted our options with the Supreme Court. We lost locally at the first court level. The Appeals Court gave us a favorable ruling. The Supreme Court decided otherwise and overruled the Appeals Court. It is what it is. We lost, we have to deal with it. We’re trying to move forward.”
During the meeting Town, Administrator Gaylene Rhoden mentioned that the town thought about incorporating as an option to get out of the uniform addressing. But that ultimately incorporating would be too expensive for the town at this time.
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Part of the meeting was held to give residents the option to suggest new names for the 61 streets in town that are being renamed.
“The residents have the opportunity to look at the changed names, those that they’re changing. And possibly offer up other names which are acceptable. And not used by other communities right now so there is no duplication anywhere in the county.”
The town has a unique system for their road names. And Opall says the town would like to continue to honor that system if at all possible.
“The Town of Rib Mountain, I think since it’s inception, if you’re north of the mountain the roads are named after birds. If your south of the mountain, it’s flowers or trees. So it’s kind of unique to our community. And we’d like to keep it, the integrity of that if we can.”
New names for the 61 streets will be decided by the Rib Mountain Town Board at their next meeting on July 3rd. Residents can continue to recommend new names for the streets up until that meeting in early July.
The final list of street names will then be sent to the County to approve. Once approved the new address signs will be created. The signs are expected to be installed in mid-September and then finished by the end of October.
