From Our Readers
Peninsula News – Thursday, June 7, 2007

Poll residents, merchants

To the Editor:        

    First of all I applaud you for taking the Moratorium Poll off your website. When I pointed out to Chris Boyd that we had identified fraudulent voting occurring with your Village Plan Moratorium yes/no question he was swift to decide to remove the poll from the site. Well done Chris, thank you.
    Because there is no reliable means to easily make website polling secure from hackers making multiple votes such polls should be restricted to less serious matters. There is no question that the RHE City Council is influenced by public opinion and in particular their constituents. Had we not discovered the ‘ballot box stuffing’ in the Moratorium Poll they might have been influenced by the results had they been taken seriously. This is a 'high stakes game' with many millions of dollars on the line and influencing City Council Members to vote one way or another puts a lot on the line. Especially when one reviews recent City Council meetings it becomes apparent that the Council is split two against two; 2 FOR more development and 2 AGAINST more development (at least until time proves the results) with one member as the proverbial "swing vote".
    I have talked to members of the City Council and City Management and they would truly like to know more about the views of the city residents and the business owners. A secure polling process might be the answer. In this regard I have two recommendations to make on how the City could find out in an honest and fair way how the residents feel and what they want and how the business owners feel and what they want.
    First I recommend that the City consider sending a personal letter to each of their residents offering them an opportunity to give their feedback (and maybe RHE could get RPV to cooperate for the RPV residents). The 'offer' would contain a serialized survey form and a self-addressed and stamped envelope, one for each residence in the City. Yes it would cost some money but maybe they'd get a reliable measure of how their constituents feel and what they want, etc.
    Second, I'd recommend engaging a professional market survey/polling firm to walk the business district (like we did when we set up the RHE Business Owners Association over a year ago) and take a serialized poll/interview from the business owners on what they think, how they are affected by the re-development and giving input on what the City could do for them.
    OK, so implementing these recommendations costs money but there is so much at stake here the cost may be justified?

                                                                            James R. Hume, Business Owner
                                                                            Rolling Hills Estates

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