I was browsing through the website of Bandera County in Texas. Apparently, two county employees are charged with “rural addressing”. I have no idea what that means. Do they make up street names and assign house numbers (in remote parts of the county)?
(One of the ladies is even referred to as a “Rural Addressing Technician”).
In many places in the rural US, no one ever bothered assigning addresses or even street names. With the Enhanced 911 emergency services, all houses need street addresses so emergency services can be dispatched quickly. It’s a process to set up new streets and house numbers, as well as entering all the info into the computer systems and GPS so it works seemlessly.
In a fast growing county I could see that being a full time job. In other areas it’s probably just a task for someone with other assignments.
One is helping any 911 service with the maps of the county.
The other is literally processing requests for authorised addresses.
This can incude naming of private roads as well as providing an address on private or public roads.
See the process here…
AND SOUTH DAKOTA’S POLICY pdf … https://dps.sd.gov/emergency_services/emergency_management/images/ra_handbook.pdf
When I first read this I interpreted “charged with” as “being prosecuted for the crime of” rather than the intended meaning “have the job of”.
I recognize that English isn’t your first language, so I’m not trying to be a jerk in pointing this out. It just struck me funny.
Me too, but I translated it to “in charge of” eventually.
My bolding. I thought this was going to be about some weird crime 
Well, since this is about local government, I thought that “charged with” would be appropriate. 
My mind spent several minutes trying to conceive of some elaborate scheme that involved creating phony residences on rural highways for some sort of monetary gain.
Having lived in Texas, I can say that the most common form of rural address is “howdy.”
I had the same thought at first.
I was thinking of how legitimate farmers & ranchers can apply for various government agriculture or land bank subsidies. Or perhaps subsidies for rural electrification or internet access. And these county employees had been mischaracterizing what’s now suburbia as still rural on the record books so homeowners could claim to be ranchers & get the subsidies. In exchange for a small kickback to the county clerks of course.
I don’t think this usage would be typical from a second language learner anyway, because it’s less common. (be charged with = be in charge of)
Summit County CO GIS department here. One of our duties, besides keeping the GIS system up to date is to assign address numbers. When a new subdivision is going through the approval process we also approve or deny proposed street names (and the Sub name itself). This is to (try) to prevent duplicate street names. Developers can get quite pissy when you tell them no.
On the other hand, a lot of folks don’t really care since we don’t get mail delivery. But it’s pretty critical for 911.
Yeah, my parents live in a rural area - when I grew up, we didn’t have a conventional street address, just a rural route number, but a few years ago, a street address was assigned.
because some emergency services might be provided at a county level and shared over county boundaries in addition this might involve.
working with agencies in a county government and between county governments. changing postal route addresses and fire numbers to street addresses; previously these might be sequential numbers in a route or path (you might have a postal address consisting of two numbers and a fire number). giving unique street names and addresses within a town and between townships in a county in a grid method allowing for expansion.
Same here. Our address when I was growing up was Route 2 Box 153.
Also, add me to the list of people wondering what sort of crime was involved when I saw the title.
I think “charged with” is more common as a British usage than a US usage. The OP is, IIRC, German, and plausibly would learned his English in a more British style. Or at least that’s what I was thinking.
It’s no more or less common in British usage than American. Either way it’s not uncommon (and it’s the first sense of the word that appears in the American Heritage Dictionary.)
Up in VT where I spent a lot of time, they let the locals suggest street names. Most were either names of geographical features, or people who used to live in the area, but it also led to names like Four Wheel Drive, Primrose Path, and Easy Street.
Nah, it’s just kids painting fake house numbers on mailboxes, so everybody gets each other’s magazines.