Last summer, the city of Menifee went out to a residential neighborhood to change out a street sign. For the city, it was a matter of finally fixing an error made nearly 20 years ago that impacted emergency and postal services.
“The staff is unsure if this happened by a subcontractor of the developer and not checked by the county or how that occurred,” Steve Strapac, the city’s principal engineer, said during the Jan. 17 council meeting. “Sometime after that, there were discrepancies with the [U.S. Postal Service] and emergency services experiencing difficulty locating Comey View Court versus Comet View Court.”
For the city, replacing the sign that said Comet View Court with one that said Comey View Court was simply a matter of changing out a street sign to reflect what had originally been approved by the county.
However, the residents of the 12 homes on the street said the city made a mistake by not only changing the street sign but also by making the change without informing any of the residents ahead of time.
“Everything to do with our transaction for our home says Comet View Court as both the address and physical location,” Kyle Stewart, who lives on the street, said. “I am the one who reported the sign to the city. … Comey View does not make any sense in my opinion. We believe an error was made in data entry.”
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Stewart, who has lived on the street for almost a decade, said the only document he has that says Comey View Court is from the tax assessor’s office, but that even that document is addressed and delivered to his home on Comet View Court.
Another resident, Rebecca Stewart, unrelated, said she first looked into the issue when she bought her home on the street in 2017, and came to the same conclusion that she lived on Comet View Court.
“I asked the tax assessor’s office, ‘Why is there a difference,’” she said. “And she said, ‘Oh, no, it’s Comet View Court, and when it was annexed into Menifee, someone made a typo error.’”
Stewart said she was told to go to the city to have the street name corrected and even researched the paperwork for the neighborhood all the way back to 2005 when the homes were first up for sale, which all had Comet View Court as the street’s name.
“I would think that if the city council chose to change the name to Comet View Court, it would be a benefit to the homeowners,” she said.
Ultimately, the council directed staff to start the process of officially changing the street name to Comet View Court, a process that requires a public hearing as well as the approval of two-thirds of the street’s residents.
“It’s eminently doable,” Jeff Melching, city attorney, said. “If that’s what the council’s desire is.”
In other council action: The Menifee City Council named Stacy Hartfiel its Outstanding Citizen of the Year for her tireless dedication to the city of Menifee and its residents.
A recording of the meeting can be found here on the city’s YouTube channel.
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