Yesterday, Inweekly surveyed the voters in City of Pensacola Districts 5, 6 and 7, using the same questions that were in the UWF Haas Center poll for Mayor Ashton Hayward.
The Haas Center survey was skewed towards the easternmost part of the City – Districts 1, 3 and 4.
District 7 – which includes two housing projects and the Tanyards – only had 30 responses recorded in the survey that the mayor has touted as proof city residents believe city services have improved in the past year and the city is headed in the right direction.
If you live on the west side of Pensacola and missed a call from “Inweekly” or “Independent News” yesterday, it was our pollster calling.
On Sunday, we met our goal of 262 completed surveys for Districts 5, 6 and 7 yesterday over about a five-hour period.
For Mayor Hayward’s Community Survey, the Haas Center only surveyed 123 people in those districts over a five-week period but polled 252 people in the mostly white, more affluent districts 1, 3 and 4.
The western districts have slightly more residents that the eastern ones.
Results will be published in January.
When the only 444 people were asked – “How would you describe the direction of the City?” – the assumption is that there is a direction and that someone knows what it is. An insightful lead question would have been to first ask people to describe in their own words the “direction” of the City. I doubt that anyone in the city government could tell you. It reminds me of something Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.” By the way, one thing I was pleased to learn during my recent political campaign in District 1 is that an increasing number of people have figured out that the budget process is about priorities and neighborhoods in general and District 1 in particular is not a priority in city hall with either the Mayor or the City Council. In general, other than people who read Rick’s Blog and Maren’s Blog, and they told me so when I expressed surprise that they were so well-informed, most city residents know far too little for their own good about city government. I wish someone would bring back a show like the old Citizens Voice that used to be on Blab-TV where there was actual discussion about city issues. I was always surprised at the number of people who told me they watched Citizens Voice and learned from it. Perhaps the Inweekly multi-media empire might think about expanding into a weekly television show. The City Council is too pathetically weak to do this but they should solicit citizen input and then send out their own citywide survey. Imagine the input they would receive if next October 1 they mailed such a survey to every household in the city. Further, in many cities, the City Councils hires independent management consultants to objectively review the performance of one or many aspects of city services. In some cases, I have seen Charter provisions that expressly require the City Council to do so as part of its legislative oversight function, a function our City Council runs and hides from.
Wish I had known who it was – received 2 calls from an unknown number that did not leave a message. Would have loved to have participated as a resident of District 7 that wasn’t reached in other survey.
Good job Rick, I bet the results will be vastly different.
i live in east hill and i was called yesterday….