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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 12, 1995                   TAG: 9510120057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BEDFORD NEEDS ADDRESSES

If you threw away a letter from the Central Virginia Planning District Commission, you may have discarded your chance to get enhanced 911 service when the city and county's new system goes online next year.

"The system won't work if we can't get people to confirm their addresses," County Administrator Bill Rolfe said. "We need everybody's cooperation." Address notification letters need to be returned so homeowners' new addresses can be entered into a Bell Atlantic database. The letters also inform residents of their new street names and numbers. The county assigned street names in preparation for the new system.

If homeowners don't return the notice, signed, they won't be able to receive E-911 service, which allows dispatchers to immediately determine where a call is coming from and who lives at that address.

Instead, homeowners would have to tell dispatchers where they live, as in the current 911 system.

So far, only homeowners in Big Island have received their address notifications. Of the 800 to 900 homes there, only 500 to 600 have sent replies, according to Garland Page, the county's community development director.