I have conducted a couple polls in the last week. Both are overwhelmingly skewed in one direction. The polls, while not crafted by a pollster and certainly not scientific, illustrate the schism between what we say is the right thing and what we are actually doing.
Recently, Ibs Young sent a letter to the editor blasting the anonymous letter writers who penned, "The Sidney Citizen." Overwhelmingly, those who responded said Mrs. Young was correct on two fronts: Calling out anonymous posting, and labeling those who did so, "Gutless, despicable cowards."
The "letter" led to a set of questions which I gave to city council members on Tuesday. Council members answered the questions with ample community participation. Those answers were reported on this site. Dave Collins from KSID radio asked council to elaborate further on the reasons why each councilman wanted to separate the city manager's dual roles. In turn, each gave what seemed to be a different reason for their thoughts, but members in the audience seemed to believe that a conspiracy to unload Gary Person continues to exist.
Dr. Cornelius questioned parliamentary procedure, but in chastising the council, got his answer slightly incorrect. It seems that a person who makes a second on a motion can withdraw his second, if the motion to which the second is provided is altered. Under the circumstances for that particular meeting, the motion did not change, and so the second should not have been withdrawn.
Accusations on violation of open meeting laws are being bandied about, but no evidence has been forthcoming, nor official complaint filed.
Another thing to consider on polling now. It is easy to skew the results here because Blogspot allows for polling, but you can cheat the results in your favor through some relatively simple techniques. As a result, the poll results are actually only reflecting a very small number of people who have voted many times.
Future polls (on the news site being created now) will contain specific logic to prevent such occurrences in the future. It will not be scientific, but it will be more reflective of people's actual choices, rather than manipulated bias as has been the case on the two polls posted thus far.
Michael Rowland
Yes, hello, me again. I'm sure you won't post this, seeing as I'm not, apparently, who I say I am. Interestingly enough, you never asked who I was.
ReplyDeleteAnyway.
Where is the evidence that these polls were skewed? You are constantly saying that facts must be presented in the post, and yet you speak of none here.
You are making so much out of some stupid letter. The problems going on here date back to the Loren Avey debauchery that Sidney had a few years ago. That all started, if you remember, when Loren Avey and Dave Weiderspon wrote a letter to members of the Community Center board. It's one thing for a citizen to call out an elected official. Elected Officials should be held accountable for their behavior and actions. All I was ever told by the attorney generals office was that it is the citizens responsibility to govern ourselves. WE are the governing body. Well now here we are again, we have council men who ignore State Statutes. YES STATE STATUTES. The statute is with regards to the fact that members of City Councils are not to have contact with employees of the subordinates of the City Manager. The city employees are not to speak to the council members and vice versa. They should all take a look at how School districts are run. Teachers are not to go to the board with issues. There is a chain of command for a reason. We have council members who break that on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteAnd NO I am not signing my name as look what speaking out in public is doing for Mike Palmer??
Oddly enough..it isn't GARY that is going after him, it's the COUNCIL...hmmm..
Blogspot polls can be manipulated by using two different browsers on the same computer, by the same person using more than one computer, etc. I know from the site metrics that nearly 50 percent of the votes in one poll were handled in this manner.
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