Tom and Angela Grizzoffi didn’t know what to make of the man meeting them in the driveway of their Rolling Meadows home.
“Hi, I’m Gary Havlick, and I’m doing a survey to find out how residents of Rolling Meadows receive information about city services,” the man said.
The couple exchanged a curious glance and drew closer to the 49-year-old stranger, who resembles a graying Harvey Keitel and displayed the charm of a young James Cagney. As smoothly as Havlick extends the greeting, he slides into a five-question survey and begins asking whether the homeowners receive regular municipal information about community services.
The questions are answered early on, but a conversation ensues, bouncing from the survey to volunteer work in America to local residential development.
Havlick, volunteering for the communications committee of Rolling Meadows Tomorrow, a city project aimed at improving the community, said he has personally surveyed 3,518 households during the past 13 months. His plan is to survey every home in the city–about 10,000, including apartments and condominiums, to gather information and suggestions from residents about how city services can be improved.
Once his mission is complete, Havlick said he will have generated the most comprehensive assessment of city services that’s ever been done in Rolling Meadows.
To city officials, Havlick’s survey seems like a project from another era. Few people find enough time to get so involved in such a grass-roots effort, they said.
“Getting people involved on a regular basis is a challenge,” said Patrick Seger, chairman of Rolling Meadows Tomorrow and director of the city’s Health and Human Resources Department. “He has lent his ear and found a way to work his way into the hearts and minds of the residents.”
Havlick, a street worker for the Carol Stream Public Works Department, has given much to the project, including spending after-work hours and most weekends greeting residents and writing survey answers. He said he’s learning a lot about the history of Rolling Meadows during his travels.
“I’m just learning about my own town while doing this,” Havlick said.
Havlick said he’s learned how Rolling Meadows grew from a muddy cornfield to a thriving suburb of 23,000. When he stops to chat with homeowners, he even picks up personal accounts of important events in American history, such as the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II.
He even met his girlfriend while surveying a neighborhood in central Rolling Meadows.
“Everybody has been so kind. When I was out there in the summer, they would invite me in for a pop, and once when it was raining, this guy came running after me with an umbrella so I could stay dry,” Havlick said.
Residents said they appreciate his efforts even though they find it difficult to grasp why one would embark on such a campaign.
“You have to ask the questions to get answers,” said Ernie Koenig, who was recently surveyed at his home on Silent Brook Lane.
What about those answers? So far, Havlick said his research shows that residents like the current monthly newsletters mailed out in their water bills. Some residents want it printed in Spanish as well as English. Many residents said they prefer the city’s cable access channel to be their primary information source, and a few would prefer it if the city posted municipal information on the Internet.
So what does all this mean? “Who knows?” said Havlick, explaining that his job is to collect the information, and city officials can do whatever they want with it, “so long as it benefits residents.”
