SALEM ACCEPTS BID TO MAP CITY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 30, 1992                   TAG: 9201300510
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: W-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
SALEM ACCEPTS BID TO MAP CITY
Salem City Council agreed Monday to pay a Columbus, Ohio, company $112,560 to map the city for a computerized geographic system.
Council accepted Benatec Associates' bid to shoot aerial photographs, establish permanent survey markers, provide maps and paint manholes, fire hydrants and water valves throughout the city.
Benatec's bid was the lowest of 13 submitted to the city. The highest was $372,195.
In 1990, council appropriated up to $300,000 in meals tax money for the Geographic Information System, a computerized method of pinpointing sewer systems, electrical lines, water lines and of providing visual topography. With the punch of a button, Salem employees can locate such things as underground cables and gas lines.
Part of establishing GIS will involve marking some 7,000 manholes, fire hydrants and water valves for aerial photographs. Joe Yates, director of planning and development, said they will be painted with a white water-soluble paint before March, when the aerial photographs will be taken.
"For a while it will look like a bunch of X's and O's all over all of the streets," Yates said.
In other business, council reappointed F. Van Gresham to the Board of Zoning Appeals; Thomas E. Stone Jr. and Robert H. Logan III to the Salem Industrial Development Authority; and Joe Yates to the Fifth Planning District Commission and Executive Committee.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB