GRANITE QUARRY — Someone whose address is listed as Salisbury, who votes in Faith and who works in Rockwell has a decent chance of being a resident of the town of Granite Quarry, a confusing situation that the board of aldermen addressed during its recent planning retreat.

The discussion began during the planning retreat when Mayor Brittany Barnhardt asked the aldermen what they thought were some of the biggest issues the town either needed to continue to do well on or improve on. Barnhardt said that one of her main areas that she wanted the town to improve upon was its recognizability. She said that people could pass through Granite Quarry and not even realize that they had been through the town.

Alderman John Linker said that many people who actually live in Granite Quarry do not realize that they are residents, often due to their address being listed under a Salisbury zip code. This spawned a conversation between the aldermen about what issues could arise due to the confusion surrounding the town limits and what they could do to make the issue easier to understand.

“There’s a lot we’re working on, we’ve got the gateway sign on Heilig Road, we’ve got wayfinding signs, we talked about doing beautification projects around our ceremonial granite gateway signs on Highway 52. I think all of those things are things that make people realize they’re in Granite Quarry,” said Barnhardt.

Aldermen Rich Luhrs and Laurie Mack asked Linker, who has been on the board the longest and dealt with the zip code issue before, what the process would look like to have the issue rectified. He said that the last time the town tried to fix the issue, they took their idea to the post office and presented the issues to them.

“We just said, here’s a presentation, here’s why, here’s the issues, whether it’s 911. We just did that and we got them in here and said ‘why can’t it be done?’ And everybody on my street, mine’s been changed for 25 years,” Linker said.

When speaking about the issues with the unreliable address, Luhrs said that he was worried about the citizens remaining engaged civically, especially with voting. He noted that he believed that none of the residents of the Village at Granite voted in the town’s most recent municipal election. Although the neighborhood is in Granite Quarry’s municipal limits, the town is in the same voting precinct as Faith, meaning Granite Quarry residents would vote at the Faith American Legion Building.

Mayor Pro-Tem Doug Shelton said that he knew that dividing the tax revenue correctly could be an issue. Property taxes can sometimes be sent to the wrong municipality when the address lists the wrong city, meaning that Salisbury could mistakenly receive revenue meant for Granite Quarry.

He also said that he had issues getting packages delivered to his own home, located on North Main Street. The post office allows Shelton to use Granite Quarry as his address, but other delivery services do not recognize that address, he said.

Barnhardt asked Town Clerk Aubrey Smith to put in a letter in the next newsletter that the town sends out to notify recipients that they do live in the town of Granite Quarry. Linker also suggested that the town ask new developers to specifically ask for a Granite Quarry address when they enter the community. For anyone wondering if they live in the city limits, the town’s official zoning map contains the boundaries and can be seen at town hall or on the town’s website, located at https://www.granitequarrync.gov/Departments/Planning-Zonin