East Hanover SID Survey Preliminary Results from East Hanover Online

For the past couple of weeks, an informal survey has been available on East Hanover Online (www.EastHanoverOnline.com) for people to register their opinions of the East Hanover Special Improvement District (SID).

Posted by web site owner Bill Treloar, a long time East Hanover resident, the survey asks people to respond to three questions. 1) Do you approve of the SID? 2) Are you a resident of East Hanover? And 3) Do you own business property in East Hanover?

The SID is now a fact in East Hanover and Treloar says the survey isn’t intended to try to question that decision or to bolster support for it, but merely to take the pulse of local residents. Since the SID wasn’t put up for referendum, the only indication of the level of popular support has been reports in the newspapers about the relative numbers of people supporting or opposing the SID at Town Council meetings. “That’s a biased sample”, Treloar says, explaining that “only those with the strongest feelings show up at a Town Council meeting.” He concluded “I’m hoping we’ll get a more representative sample of people expressing their opinions at East Hanover Online.” Treloar hopes that this feedback may even be useful to the SID committee as it makes its plans going forward.

Preliminary results represent only 34 votes so far, so no reliable conclusions can yet be drawn. Nevertheless, here’s the current breakdown:

Agree with the SID? Yes = 12%, No = 88%
East Hanover Resident? Yes = 77%, No = 20%, No Answer = 3 %
Business Owner? Yes = 21%, No = 76%, No Answer = 3%

25% of those in favor of the SID are business property owners while 75% are not.
83% of those opposed to the SID are residents, 17% are non-residents.
20% of those opposed to the SID are business property owners and 80% are not.

Treloar emphasizes that no hard and fast conclusions are possible from the current small sample, and encourages those with opinions on the subject to express themselves. The poll provides for comments to be registered for those who want to explain their positions. East Hanover Online hopes to release some of the anonymous comments after there’s been greater participation in the poll.