b'C H A P T E R SI XThe questions in Mrs. Holdgates 1996 survey included How are you employed? Are you retired? "Where do you commute to your job? Before long, this questionnaire was in the mail.Soon, returns were winging in: 3,000 of them! The Planning Department couldnt begin to take on harvesting this rich crop, so Mrs. Ecker had to do it; she hired Denis McSweeneys daughter, Mairade, to help, and they set to work in the heat of summer at the Annex. One read the form aloud, the other keyed in answers on the computera dog of a job, says Mrs. Ecker. When they completed 1,000 returns, she announced, Thats it! Its a statistically defensible number, one out of three. Computer-savvy, she converted this lode into graphics and saw that she was sitting on a tremendous amount of original research .It was extraordinary.One target had been to see what property owners, residence owners and retirees contributed to Chathams economy. Calling the National Association of Home Builders of the U. S. in Washington, she learned how they figured what stimulus every house would contribute to the local economy. Applying that tool, she did some calculating and determined that taking a balanced look at the economy, theres going to be a retail segment, but theres also an enormous portion that is based on residential property owners.To be precise, 91 percent of the taxes came from them. And so, she concluded, the town should be cautious about stimulating commercial development in a community so dependent on the attraction of its natural resources to bring in all the high-paying property. Simply put:If you havent protected your environment, then people will not be attracted to your community.Data summarized and graphed, Mrs. Ecker then determined to get the Chamber of Commerce engaged early;Chamber Chairman Jay Stahl agreed, and a meeting was scheduled. It was like a junior high school dance, Mrs. Ecker remembers. All the Chamber people were lined up against one wall, and FCW people on the other. It could have been touchy. After all, the way her analysis was headed, it would say that, on one hand, the Chamber was boosting tourism, while, on the other, there were real risks of over-development and over-stimulation beyond the capacity of Chathams economy and natural resources to handle.Then something happened. Out of the corner of her eye, Debby Ecker could see one of the Chambers nucleus nodding his head up and down in obvious approval of her message.Importantly, he was Chris Diego, general manager of Chatham Bars Inn. When the session broke up, he said to her, Let me know what I can do to help you.Before many days passed, six individuals were sitting on CBIs veranda 90'