LAKE HUNTINGTON — E911 is coming… but one town board doesn’t like what’s coming along with it: management and monitoring responsibilities.

"The county is passing the buck," said Cochecton Town Supervisor Salvatore Indelicato said at the monthly town board meeting held on March 8, 2000.

Indelicato was reacting to a letter that arrived last week from Sullivan County Legislature Chairman Rusty Pomeroy to town supervisors, urging the passage of a local town law which in effect makes the towns responsible for enforcing the new emergency system, called Enhanced 911, or E911.

The town board strongly objected to the management and monitoring of the new system, which demands a uniform naming of roads and that homeowners display the house number, should fall upon the town. "Who’s going to pay for the time and energy that this law demands from the code enforcement officer?" Indelicato asked.

The draft of the law, provided by Sullivan County, spells out detailed instructions that the code enforcement officer must keep records of all names and numbers, check that homeowners have complied with the new names and numbers and, in effect, enforce the law. Non-compliance could be punished in accordance with the state’s penal code, Indelicato said. "The county tends to issue directives and expects towns to cover the cost," he added.

County officials do not agree. "We’ve already numbered all the houses and renamed roads that had to be renamed," Pomeroy said in a phone interview. "We’re not forcing the towns to do anything they don’t want to do. The point of this is that we need a uniform way of implementing the E911 system and not 15 different ways. The towns don’t have to adopt this particular law if they don’t want to. We can meet with them and work out a uniform solution," he said.

Pomeroy explained that the local law’s principal concerns are new homes, new subdivisions and new roads that will be created. "The towns have control of the planning process and they’re the only ones who can control this," Pomeroy said. "I’m sure they don’t want to relinquish the planning process."

Despite their immediate objection to the added town responsibility, the board approved the following changes in the names of town roads to comply with the regulations of the E911 system:

• The Narrowsburg Road (County Road 111, 112, 113) to State Road 52;

• The Newburgh Turnpike (County Road 114) to County Road 114;

• Dell Road (County Road 115) to County Road 115;

• Lake Huntington Road (County Road 116) to County Road 116; and

• Mesmer Hill Road (State Road 17B) to State Road 17B.