The results are reported as follows:
From the Town Hall:
Do you support a casino located in Downtown Hamilton? 38 residents voted Yes, 103 residents voted No.
Do you support a casino locating elsewhere in Hamilton? 34 residents voted Yes, 84 residents voted No.
Results of a ward wide automated telephone survey
Yes: 240, 54.18%
No: 154, 34.76%
Undecided 49, 11.06%
Q2: Do you support a Casino locating in the Downtown Core of Hamilton? (Asked if Q1 = Yes/Undecided)
Yes 188, 68.12%
No: 49, 17.75% Undecided: 39, 14.13%
Q3: Do you support a Casino locating elsewhere in the City of Hamilton? (Asked if Q2 = No/Undecided)
Yes: 51, 60.00%
No: 6, 7.06%
Undecided: 28, 32.94%
Thanks to Clr. Farr for sharing these results.
Comments?
I would accept the town hall vote results but would be leery of the phone ones. You never know who is answering on the phone ones, and the degree to which they have information.
ReplyDeleteI believe the opposite. The phone are random and a better representation. Only a few people who are adamant on a certain subject show up.
DeleteIsn't that part of what you want? People who are informed and have an opinion? To debate it out and come to a conclusion? And from the stats reported, looks like people from both sides of the issue showed up. I can train my dog to press 2 on a phone.
DeleteIf you want to gauge a population's views, it is always better to do a random sample. Meetings/town halls tend to attract only people with very strong feelings - either positive or negative. While these people might be the most engaged, they do not necessarily reflect the collective feeling on a matter. If you look at the "Occupy" movement, these people were very vocal and very visible and they had very strong feelings. An anti-abortion rally can bring out a similar group of very engaged, very opinionated people. I would not want to set public policy based on these rallies.
ReplyDeleteLet me add that while I am not a believer in casinos as economic catalysts or as helpful in downtown renewal, Hamilton does have a casino now at Flamboro Downs. I would hate to lose that facility as we have this debate. If any casino could be located there, it would save the horse racing facility and would also maintain a significant stream of revenue. If Hamilton went completely "dry", current casino patrons would visit facilities in the next closest geographic area. Can't we keep what we have?
Perfectly said Marvin!
DeleteI agree 100% that we should focus our energy on KEEPING WHAT WE HAVE IN FLAMBOROUGH!
Kudos to Clr. Farr for engaging Citizens ~ but Marvin is right on in his opinions there too.
Have a great day everyone!!!
This casino could provide hundreds of jobs downtown.Their are a lot of fine and good people struggling to better themselves in our downtown area . This project will assist our downtown and the people that need those jobs.
ReplyDeleteRobocall polls are not scientific. There's no way of knowing whether questions were misunderstood or answers were punched in by a 6 year old. The City will be conducting additional city-wide polls with a live pollster, which can be deemed scientific.
ReplyDeleteAs for the results downtown, any way you slice it, it's pretty clear the majority doesn't want a casino, which will likely bear out in the scientific polling.
The Casino may provide jobs for our City, but it will bring more Organized Crime here. We have enough of these people running our City. I think our City needs to be educated on Organized Crime and Casinos.
ReplyDelete