Sebastopol Council to Waste Money on PR "Survey" While Refusing to Debate Real Issues

This evening (January 6, 2015), Sebastopol’s City Council will vote, probably unanimously, to waste $5.500 of taxpayer money for a meaningless public relations exercise designed as a survey. Meanwhile, taxpaying citizens will likely never hear a whisper about the significant policy decisions that our elected representatives will quietly make (or not make) in our name, with our tax dollars during the coming year.

Read for yourself the transparently rhetorical questions that Sebastopol's City Council is about to pay its $40,000 per year external PR consultant an additional $5,500 to ask our fellow citizens. (Scroll to page 4 to see the two pages of public relations slogans posing as survey questions on the City Council agenda website here)

The “survey” will ask us to rank, from 1 to 10, the importance of platitudes like “Maintaining Long Term Financial Sustainability.” Or would we prefer to prioritize “Economic Vitality,” or “Maintaining a highly qualified city staff.”

Ironically, I am the citizen who requested that the City council survey the public on meaningful policy issues as a means of advancing a “Gov 2.0” back channel to allow feedback on specific questions. Instead, we have public relations statements masquerading as questions—and costing us an additional $5,500 in PR expenses in the process.

I have created and written about surveys for decades. There is a saying in information gathering: “garbage in, garbage out.” Meaning that if you gather meaningless data, you will have no concrete usage for it.

Meanwhile, I can think of at least a half dozen pertinent questions that our Council Members will be deciding in the coming months, by themselves, without ever asking our opinions about them. This, I am sorry to say, is because they do not want to hear what we think, because they have already decided, amongst themselves and their small circle of political supporters, what their answers will be. The last thing, it seems, that they want to know is what We, the People, think of them.

Although these questions are never likely to come up in any city survey, the answers to them will directly impact the lives of most of us, or our City's budget. Conveniently for our secretive local government, they are unlikely ever to be reported in our obsequious local media.

Here are some real questions that our City Council’s PR survey will not be asking us:

The City is scheduled to spend $66,000 in taxpayer funds to purchase two new large gas powered trucks for our Public Works/Parks Dept. Sebastopol does not have a single all-electric vehicle in its large fleet. Should the city instead make one of these an all electric utility vehicle for use in our city parks?

Should the City create a ballot measure this year to provide the low income tax exemption that was promoted, but not included, in the expanded four new "utility" taxes that began as Measure R this year?

Should the City create a bike lane along Morris Avenue linking the two bike trails in and out of Sebastopol?

Should the City spend $500,000 on a fourth bay storage building for the fire station’s equipment, as it has already begun allocating reserves to build?

Should the City provide 20% pay scale raises (in addition to cost of living wages) to most of its managers?

Should the City reduce regulations to allow homeowners to add granny units to their properties?

Ridiculous survey questions, like when a fund-raising letter asks questions sure to elicit a positive response, then asks for a donation. So broadly worded that they can't possibly be used to prioritize what the populace wants, but rather fit into a pre-ordained agenda. Sad.

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

This evening (January 6, 2015), Sebastopol’s City Council will vote, probably unanimously, to waste $5.500 of taxpayer money for a meaningless public relations exercise designed as a survey. Meanwhile, taxpaying citizens will likely never hear a whisper about the significant policy decisions that our elected representatives will quietly make (or not make) in our name, with our tax dollars during the coming year.

Read for yourself the transparently rhetorical questions that Sebastopol's City Council is about to pay its $40,000 per year external PR consultant an additional $5,500 to ask our fellow citizens. (Scroll to page 4 to see the two pages of public relations slogans posing as survey questions on the City Council agenda website here)

The “survey” will ask us to rank, from 1 to 10, the importance of platitudes like “Maintaining Long Term Financial Sustainability.” Or would we prefer to prioritize “Economic Vitality,” or “Maintaining a highly qualified city staff.”
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I just returned from that City Council meeting in which this survey was debated. I talked about the absence of meaningful questions and reviewed a letter I sent to them similar to what I posted above.

Mayor Patrick Slayter noted that what he intended for the staff to do was not the survey questions proposed, but something similar to Vallejo, which did a "Participatory Budgeting" process in which the public was able to vote their tax dollars directly for projects. He said that with Measure R passed and new revenues coming in, the Council might let the public decide how to spend some of it.

I checked out what Vallejo is doing and it is exactly the sort of meaningful survey I had in mind. See this web page of theirs:
https://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/city_ha...ory_budgeting/

I supported the idea and hoped that the Council could do that for this upcoming budget cycle. They felt there was not enough time but want to try to do something similar next year. staring in the fall of 2015.

Meanwhile, most on the Council spoke against a survey that asked such vague questions.

Given a limited time frame before this year's budget hearing, they decided not to pursue the survey at all this year, as they agreed that without more substantial questions, it would be a waste of effort and money. :thumbsup:

Jonathan,

Thanks for posting this. I am always grateful when someone who poses a particular point of view about an issue sees it through and reports back. It keeps me informed and updated on things that I am very interested in, but am not always able to attend. It is gratifying to know that there is still critical thinking going on and that there are those among us who are willing to report on things as well as editorialize about them. Thank you for being one of them.

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

I just returned from that City Council meeting in which this survey was debated. I talked about the absence of meaningful questions and reviewed a letter I sent to them similar to what I posted above.

Mayor Patrick Slayter noted that what he intended for the staff to do was not the survey questions proposed, but something similar to Vallejo, which did a "Participatory Budgeting" process in which the public was able to vote their tax dollars directly for projects. He said that with Measure R passed and new revenues coming in, the Council might let the public decide how to spend some of it.

I checked out what Vallejo is doing and it is exactly the sort of meaningful survey I had in mind. See this web page of theirs:
https://www.ci.vallejo.ca.us/city_ha...ory_budgeting/

I supported the idea and hoped that the Council could do that for this upcoming budget cycle. They felt there was not enough time but want to try to do something similar next year. staring in the fall of 2015.

Meanwhile, most on the Council spoke against a survey that asked such vague questions.

Given a limited time frame before this year's budget hearing, they decided not to pursue the survey at all this year, as they agreed that without more substantial questions, it would be a waste of effort and money. :thumbsup:

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I have to totally agree.

(And yes, Barry, I know what the "gratitude" button is for, but sometimes it does not suffice.)

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Posted in reply to the post by 79paul:

Ridiculous survey questions, like when a fund-raising letter asks questions sure to elicit a positive response, then asks for a donation. So broadly worded that they can't possibly be used to prioritize what the populace wants, but rather fit into a pre-ordained agenda. Sad.

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Thanks yet again Jonathan for showing how the emperor has no clothes.

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Posted in reply to the post by Peacetown Jonathan:

This evening (January 6, 2015), Sebastopol’s City Council will vote, probably unanimously, to waste $5.500 of taxpayer money for a meaningless public relations exercise designed as a survey. Meanwhile, ...

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I also attended part of the City Council meeting when they were discussing the proposed Survey regarding the budget. I agree with Jonathan's points and am glad that the council also found reason to not go forward with this.

It is interesting that the Santa Rosa council published their own on-line survey (in English and Spanish) asking about public input on budget priorities the very next day. They used SurveyMonkey and produced this survey below. I think this is much more interesting than what was proposed in Sebastopol. Of course, as Robert Jacob pointed out, how you ask the questions and what kind of background information you give on an issue can greatly affect the responses. But that doesn't mean that a well-formed on-line survey can't be created. Getting very specific about items that will be voted on in the next budget cycle would be important.

Here is the Santa Rosa survey in English:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VSBMK8X

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Posted in reply to the post by peggykarp:

Thanks yet again Jonathan for showing how the emperor has no clothes.

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