b'C H A P T E R SI XBy 92, Mrs. Swanson was ready to take on that considerable obligation. Many elements would be familiar, but she was perplexed by what should be said about the towns economy. Serendipitously, Mrs. Ecker came through her door at almost that moment. Just possibly, Mrs. Swanson had not bargained for getting the services of that experienced a volunteer.When the new Long Range Planning Committee had previously put out a call for members, Mrs. Ecker had stepped forward. But three people had applied for two slots, and she was passed over. (There were intimations that she may have been over-qualified, that is, too potent.) Putting that turndown behind her, she offered to help Margaret Swanson, the lead figure in drafting the plan.To the question about writing an economic section, Mrs. Ecker replied, Thats something I know how to do. Ive prepared regional economic studies. When I was with the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, I wrote a book [later published] on the regional economy of Massachusetts. How could Margaret Swanson turn her down?Somehow, however, something intended to fit into the Towns official LRP process metamorphosed into an independent FCW project. In FCW thinking at the time, a link tied together the money spent on promoting tourism and what was allocatedtoo littleto shield land from development. The FCW board liked what Mrs. Ecker proposed. Right on! they said, and voted in favor of her doing an economic study actually apart from the Towns LRP.Having been through that kind of mill before, she started by lining up three individuals with strong backgrounds in economic analysis, all of them summer residents. They were Denis McSweeney, then assistant regional commissioner, New England regional office, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; Roy C. Smith, former Goldman, Sachs partner and teacher of economics at New York Universitys Stern School of Business; and Jeff Fuglestad, who had prepared economic analyses for a bank in New Jersey. They talked about general directions, and the first two agreed to be Mrs. Eckers readers. Then, on her own, she set about collecting essential data.At the outset, she knew that some numbers could be gleaned from the Federal Unemployment Compensation program; it was widely viewed as accurate. That was a start. But there was a down side, she recalls: the data did not cover the self-employed (fishermen, house painters, small-staff carpenters). I suspected, she says, that large numbers of Chathams workers were not being reported. What to do? Some numbers were in hand, but they were all over the map. To improve on it, Mrs. Ecker took Mrs. Swansons suggestion, went to then-Town Clerk Joanne Holdgate and asked her to write a new questionnaire.89'