Survey participation
By the end of this week or the middle of the next, a community-wide survey is going to show up at your house.
Or, it may show up at your dorm room. Or your apartment. Or your farm.
Wherever you live, whether in a Tabor dorm room or a house on Grand, one thing stays the same: You need to fill out this survey.
This survey is the product of months and months of work by the Hillsboro Planning and Zoning Commission. It's been a long time in the works, being perfected and tweaked down to the tiniest word.
To do their jobs well, the planning board needs information. They need information from Hillsboro's residents; they want to know what direction the citizens want to go.
Here's a specific issue: For the past several months, the planning board has been discussing the issue of manufactured housing.
The discussions can get confusing. What is manufactured housing? Is it the same as a mobile home? A single-wide or double-wide? Where can they go? In any neighborhood?
After months of discussion, the board is looking at the possibility of zoning a new manufactured housing subdivision, one that would take the "single-wide" variety of mobile homes.
But they won't do that until they hear from the people of Hillsboro first. Before they take action, they want to know how you feel about it.
So fill out the survey for the planning board, who've spent hours perfecting it.
But also fill it out for your own curiosity.
The more people that fill out the survey, the more accurate it will be. And there are plenty of interesting things to find out about the Hillsboro community.
We all know that many people commute out of town for work. What is that percentage? How many commute to Newton and McPherson, and how many make the longer drive to Wichita?
Another interesting question: How much money do people really spend in Hillsboro? Do they try to buy all the necessities in town, or do they sneak off occasionally to Towne East or the Newton Wal-Mart?
This information should be interesting to anyone living here, just for curiosity's sake.
So when you get the survey, fill it out. It shouldn't take more than five or 10 minutes. Then drop it in the mailbox or put it in the drop box at City Hall when you take in your city bill.
Not much of a hassle, is it? Finding out the results will be much more rewarding for the effort.
— JENNIFER WILSON
