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Cities want to explore renaming County Road 10 Friday, June 3, 2011 by Tim Hennagir What’s in a name? Plenty, especially if the moniker in question involves County Road 10 and the communities of Blaine, Spring Lake Park and Mounds View. Changing the name of the road and formation of a citizens’ committee to study the idea came up May 25 during a tri-city meeting at Mounds View City Hall. Mounds View Mayor Joe Flaherty mentioned the name change as a general topic of discussion. Councilmember Carol Mueller said city businesses would be “very happy” to get involved with a committee process. Spring Lake Park Councilmember Barbara Carlson said the current name was confusing for motorists. “Just to get the numeric 10 designation off it would be major,” said Blaine Mayor Tom Ryan. It would be nice to have a continuous name all the way through.” Blaine Councilmember Katherine Kolb suggested putting two or three citizens from each community on a committee. “Coon Rapids has to be on it,” she said. Coon Rapids Mayor Tim Howe stated in an e-mail the issue has been discussed. “I don’t feel renaming the [County Road 10] section in Coon Rapids would be appropriate for us, [but] certainly we would be opening to listening to ideas.” Mounds View City Administrator Jim Ericson said the issue surfaced 10 years ago. That’s when the when new Highway 10 opened to traffic in the north metro. “People coming north or south on Interstate 35W get confused when they see two exits with a 10 in the designation,” Ericson said. “It’s a case of old 10, new 10, white 10, blue 10,” he said, referring to a mix of signs that confront motorists. Doug Fischer, Anoka County’s highway engineer, said last week name designations for county roads are a community’s choice. For example, County Road 14 in Anoka, Coon Rapids and Lino Lakes is called Main Street. In Blaine, it’s called 125th Avenue, Fischer said. Blaine, Spring Lake Park and Mounds View could chart a similar path with their County Road 10 idea, he said. “However, the actual number is something the county does have authority over,” Fischer said. “We do number the roads.” According to Fischer, to change a road number just takes an Anoka County Board resolution to re- designate and renumber a county highway. That’s been done in the past for various roads. “Most recently, we renumbered County Road 10 [Birch Street in Lino Lakes] as County Road 34,” Fischer said. “We did that with a county board resolution. It’s still Birch Street, but it’s now County Road 34. “As far as the local street name, we leave that up to the cities, and the county really doesn’t weigh in at all.” Flaherty said the city of Mounds View would take the lead on getting a letter out to Blaine City Manager Clark Arneson and Spring Lake Park City Administrator Barbara Nelson regarding the formation of a committee to study a County Road 10 name change. “We need to ask Coon Rapids to come to the table,” Kolb said. Tim Hennagir is at tim.hennagir@ecm-inc.com