SBspook
User
Senior Board Member
| Posts: 19 |   |
|
Re:SHARE Questions the Validity of Town Telephone Survey - 2008/10/03 14:03
Hey Dirty - A professionally conducted Charette by a credible firm would be as close to unbiased as you can get. These firms are "professionals" in that they have experience in determining bias in the process and therefor leveling the process. There is little to no chance of the Charette being hijacked as people such as you are implying.
As for the cost, I'm sure if the board of finance and our land use boards put their thinking caps on, they could find sources of alternative funding. Just because the general economy sucks does not mean that there is not money. It just takes people with brains to locate it.
As for putting dollar amounts on what people would be willing to pay to crap. Is the town thinking of imposing a "keep Rt. 10 2-lanes" or a "ridge line" tax??? How stupid is that? And you simply can't equate increasing tax dollars for things like that, when you have no spending controls at all in town, especially with the school budget where their priorities are so far out of whack (spending $600k on technology instead of people for instance).
The airport is a stupid idea. The geniuses involved with pushing this initiative are like a bunch of kids looking for someone to buy them a new toy. Yes, there is a federal program which will assist municipalities to purchase their airports (financing up to 90% of the purchase). What no one talks about is that this program has yet to be enacted, and no one knows what the cost(s) to the town will be once they own their airport (and yes, there will be costs). Does anyone really think that the town could run an airport? Does anyone really think this would make money? I've heard Dave Ryan extol his vision of turning Simsbury airport into one of these "air taxi-ports". He probably thinks he's some brilliant person because he's read an article about VLJ's (very light jets) and firms like DayJet and Pogo (air taxi services). What that dumb ass doesn't understand is that the runway at Simsbury airport is too short, and doesn't have the electronics required by the FAA. Bradley airport is not about to allow more air traffic to come from 4B9 (Simsbury airport) since it's already in one of Bradley's traffic patterns. Heck, they can't even compete with Robertson in Plainville. On top of that, Simsbury airport has limited access to highways and any significant market for Air Taxi type services. And most telling is that due to economic issues, Dayjet has recently announced that it has suspended all but 1 aircraft in it's fleet (http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/DayJetSuspendsOperations_198820-1.html). There has been a lot of analysis indicating that this business model is not going to work. So should Simsbury make a big bet on something as sophisticated as this? I'd say.... Nope!
As far as conducting a public sentiment survey the old fashioned way... While I agree that this would be a good idea, first you'd have to find an elected official in town willing to actually "listen" to their constituents.
As for this survey... It looks like SHARE has helped to flush $15k right down the town's newly renovated sewage system.
How will the town ever be able to present an accurate report now that SHARE has broadcast the questions and some bais about the survey?
Ha ha!
|
Specter (1116)
