HOULTON – It won’t be long before municipal employees and residents can reap the rewards of the town’s new geographic information system, or GIS.

Town councilors heard an update on the $82,000 mapping project at a recent meeting, where Code Enforcement Officer Wade Hanson said that the initiative is “two-thirds done.”

“All of the [aerial] photos are done,” Hanson said in response to Councilor Carl Lord, who wanted an update on the project. “They [the James W. Sewall Co.] are starting to digitalize the tax maps, which will go onto a Web site. Once the process is completed, we’ll have an acting, working Web site.”

Councilors voted in April to award the job to the Old Town-based Sewall firm. The crux of the GIS project consists of Sewall officials flying over and photographing the municipality, which was done in the fall. The company will develop the photographs and plot them for the town, on CD-ROM and on an Internet mapping site. Viewers will be able to see streets, property lines, parcel areas and subdivision lots, among other elements.

The project has been a controversial one for the town, with the public divided over whether the $82,000 system was necessary for the municipality. Many came forward in protest before and after the initiative was approved. Some deemed GIS too expensive for a small town, while others complained that the municipality would have to shell out a great deal of money to maintain the system each year.

Questions also were raised about the process that awarded the project to the Sewall company, for which Peggy Daigle, the town manager at the time, formerly worked. Daigle served as director of municipal GIS for the company before she became Houlton’s town manager. She has since left Houlton to become city manager of Old Town and has vehemently dismissed all suggestions of impropriety.

At the recent meeting, councilors continued to ask questions about the system. Councilor Paul Romanelli wanted assurance that the project “couldn’t go higher than $82,000,” and that if it did, it would “come back to the council for approval.”

Interim Town Manager Cathy O’ Leary reiterated that the council would need to approve additional expenses, and told the board that Houlton has paid Sewall about $50,000 toward the project. There is no funding in the 2005 budget allocated for GIS, and the cost of employee training on the new equipment will come at no cost to the town.

“The training is going to be an ongoing process,” Hanson said. “It will be a combined effort between the Sewall company, the town and the Northern Maine Development Commission.”

Officials estimated during the recent meeting that it would take $2,000 a year in town funds to keep the GIS mapping program running after 2005.