b"C H A P T E R SI XThinking back to that January morning, the studys author doesnt recall that her presentation touched off much discussion. Nor did she get a lot of feedback on the 62-page report. But Mrs. Ecker was pleased with press coverage.In his 27-paragraph article, starting on The Chronicle's front page, Tim Wood quoted her as saying, We hope the study will be used by town officials when making decisions on directions the town should take. She also hoped, the article stated, that her text could be drawn upon for the evolving long range plan. Planner Margaret Swanson agreed. Wood also had a chance to talk to Margo Fenn, Chathams former planner who had gone on to be chief planner for the Cape Cod Commission.Its really great to have a study focus on the town itself, she told the Chatham reporter. Ms. Fenn expressed enthusiasm about using the town census to assemble relevant information, saying, That will provide comparable data year-to-year, whereas the Federal census is three years out of date before its released.Postmortem and PostscriptWhat happened, once the FCW study began to circulate? Not as much as author Ecker had wanted. She had thought that her statistical assessment might lead the selectmen to back off from making annual tourism-related appropriations to the Chamber of Commerce. That didnt happen. And the issue continues to be an irritant for someit was brought up at Town Meeting in 2002 when speakers, including Debby Ecker, tried unsuccessfully to get voters to turn down a 50 percent increase in appropriation to Chamber functions. (As an addendum, though, Town Manager Hinchey was made aware that this funding was at least irregular in that no contract existed between Town and Chamber.)At the same time, Mrs. Ecker believes that the Chamber did hear some of the message. There seems to have been less full frontal promotion of midsummer tourism by the Chamber, she says, and quotes Executive Director David Bocksch as saying, We are no longer promoting Chatham, we are managing the tourism we have. Where management begins and promotion leaves off is a litde fuzzy. As it stands, the Chamber is heralding tourism in the shoulder seasons (May-June and September-October). Would this have happened, anyway, without the FCW study? It could have, believes Mrs. Ecker, then adds, I think it brought it more to general consciousness to have this open confrontation over the issues.The FCW-sponsored economic study had just marked its fifth birthday in January 2002 when a new member of the Long Range Planning Committee94"