Members present: Chip Canupp, Clarence Hood, Thomas Jones, Jerry Lael, Rusty Lutz, Dawn Mull, Glenn Pattishall, Reba Reinhardt, Tony Wolfe, Charlie Wyant.

Members absent: Tom Lilly, Kevin Sanders, Keith Stahley.

Staff present: Mary George from the Catawba County Planning Department; John C. Tippett, Jr., Anthony Starr and John Kenny, consultants from the Western Piedmont Council of Governments.

John Tippett began the meeting at 7 pm by introducing himself and Anthony Starr and John Kenny, two WPCOG consultants who will work closely with the Startown SAP Committee. Tippett then introduced Catawba County Planner Mary K. George, the County Planning Department's staff person responsible for the County's small area planning effort.

Ms. George then explained the Small Area Planning process by noting its focus on community-based planning. She described briefly the 7 small areas in the County and described the status of the four completed Plans (Mountain View, Sherrills Ford, St. Stephens/Oxford and Balls Creek) and the Catawba Area Plan which is nearing completion. She noted that Startown is the 6th area to undergo this process and that the final small area, Plateau, will begin its planning process this spring. In each planning process the Committee, with the help of the WPCOG consultants and County staff, studies 7 areas and makes suggestions based on those issues and the feedback from members of the local community. Those issues include transportation, land use, community facilities and public services (such as schools, water and sewer service, libraries, emergency services), housing, economic development, natural/environmental resources and cultural/historical resources.

Anthony Starr then asked to group to consider several housekeeping issues (meeting place, time and day of the month). The group agreed on the second Thursday of the month and will meet at the County Administration Building unless another more suitable place might be discovered. Starr also distributed a list of tentative meeting topics for each month.

John Kenny then distributed a short summary of the basic demographic data on the Startown area, discussing its growth (persons and households) from 1990 - 2000 and comparing the area's growth to that in the County. He then compared Startown, the three Census tracts which encompass the area and the County on details such as race and ethnicity, population age, housing and migration, commuting time to work, place of work, type of employment and household income. The discussion finally considered briefly some population projections for 2005, 2010 and 2015 assuming a long-term growth trend.

Anthony Starr then explained the Photo Exercise, the "homework" assignment for the Committee and the focus of the next Committee meeting (see handout). Members are asked to return their cameras to Mary George by Monday, February 9 for film developing.

Finally the group unanimously elected Tony Wolfe as Chairman and Chip Canupp as Vice Chair.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 pm.