August 2, 2007

Committee Members Present: Rocky Martin, Carl Bohlen, Bruce Wheeler, Kellie Stoll, Alan Norris, Dale Wernhoff.

The meeting came to order at approximately 7:10 PM.

New Member of Affordable Housing Committee (AHC): Lea Cassidy has resigned from the AHC. Her replacement is Bruce Wheeler. Bruce has been attending our meetings for several months and is a welcome addition to our committee.

Discussion of AHC Community Survey: Work continued on the survey. It was suggested that the “Help” box (a plea for the survey to be filled out) be moved to the top of the cover sheet. Another suggestion was to add a source for the rental info shown. Envelopes for mailing and returning the surveys would either have a mailing label from the town hall or Kellie would have the info printed on the envelopes at work. Return envelopes would be provided without return postage to help reduce costs.

Karen Cornish, the town’s web mistress, will add a link to the town’s web site so the surveys can be filled out on line. She’ll also have it set up so it will automatically tabulate results on the fly. This information will be made available to Rocky.

After we come up with a final draft Rocky will have the town administration review the survey for quality.

How to analyze the data was discussed. Kellie and Dale said a spreadsheet was needed. All agreed that the questions had to be worded properly to make analyzing the data easier or even possible. It was brought up that we could create four sub categories for analyzing the data: whether you lived in Hinesburg or not and whether you worked in Hinesburg or not. Carl suggested this could be reduced to three categories: if you live here, if you work here, or both.

At the bottom of the survey the names, phone numbers, and web addresses of all the local affordable housing advocacy groups will be added if anybody wants further information.

Rocky will write a short story for the Hinesburg Record telling people to watch for the survey. It will appear in both the August and September issues.

At an earlier meeting it was suggested that a prize or prizes would be made available and rewarded in a random drawing of returned surveys (Contact info would have to be provided on the surveys). Upon further discussion the prize idea was dropped, although Carl had mixed feelings because he was for anything that would increase the response to the survey. Donna had volunteered at the prior meeting to look into prizes to be donated by area businesses. It was decided to get her input and a status report prior to making any final decision in regards to the prizes.

Next Meeting –

September 6^th – Continue working on the Community Survey; no speaker is planned.

Respectfully submitted

Dale Wernhoff