Our staff members who worked last Wednesday’s Business Showcase had a good time visiting with those of you who stopped and chatted with us.

 We certainly appreciate those of you who filled out the questionnaire on your readership habits with our newspaper. We also appreciate receiving your phone book listing changes.

Remember if you have changed phone numbers or moved in the past year, please fill out and return the form you may have picked up at our booth. It is also in this week’s newspaper on Page 7B, or you can make the changes on line (www.fhtimes.com and scroll down to the forms section at the lower left side of the front page and click on White Page listing change.)

We want to maintain the excellent listing information we provide in your community telephone directory. Our master list is constantly being updated.

Getting back to the Business Showcase, it was our observation, and we heard from many exhibitors that the traffic was down this year. We handed out far less copies of the paper and phone book than usual. In the past we have always had to call back to the office to bring more papers. But there was no need to do that this time.

I think there are several factors that contributed to the traffic reduction.

First of all, I think there has been a significant drop in the number of residents we have now. I feel many more households than we realize merely packed up and moved out of town in the middle of the night.

Why do I feel this way?

There are far less cars on our main streets as we drive around town.  Most of the restaurants are much slower than ever. And the checkout lines are never that long at Bashas’, Safeway or Fry’s.

And this should be the clincher . . . I called Ron Huber, Sanitary District Manager, to see if there has been a reduction in the flow of sewage into the treatment plant. He confirmed that it is down an average of 100,000 gallons a day. He said that equates to 543 homes!

The results of the 2010 census should prove interesting.

My next thought about the Business Showcase is that it should be held on Saturday. We really need more of our working people to get to know the businesses we have here. By the time they get home from work, make sure the kids have done their homework and take care of other necessary evening chores, the Showcase is shutting down.

And my last thought, we need to consider moving the Taste of Fountain Hills from the Community Center lobby to the back end of the main ballroom.

It is basic Retail Marketing 101. Place your biggest draw in the rear of the store. That’s why the milk and eggs are in the rear of most grocery stores, and the pharmacy is in back of the drug stores. You have to walk down the aisles to get there and it is anticipated that some item along the way will attract your interest.

I had more than one restaurant operator comment that they noticed a number of attendees merely looped around the food booths once or twice and exited, entirely bypassing the exhibition room. It was their early dinner.      

I’m not complaining about the Business Showcase. It’s a very worthwhile event and Sharon and her people do a fantastic job with all of the special events they do. My comments are meant to be helpful.

In closing, I want to congratulate the winners of the two drawings we had at our booth. Margaret Heiser won a free one-year subscription to The Times. Already a subscriber, we extended it one more year.   

The business that won the free advertising in The Times was Discover Mobility owned by Dennis and Renee Contino. They will be running two 2-column by 5-inch ads in the newspaper. Congratulations!