Well, we tried. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been asking the people of North Grenville to tell us how they feel about the proposed prison for Kemptville. In the event, just 214 of you took part, which either means most people don’t care or have an opinion, or that they’re just tired of the whole story.
Of the 214 votes, 165 were against the prison (77%), while 33 were in favour of it (15%). 16 people said they just didn’t care one way or another. It was a most unscientific survey, always likely to get opponents involved, rather than supporters, but at least we attempted to get the feeling of the community on the topic, for what it’s worth.
Nice try, how many people knew about it? How many people tried to vote but couldn’t because of errors, or your poll would not allow people to vote because it said closed before the closing date. People were even commenting on your post that they were unable to vote.
This is extremely unprofessional for a news media outlet. Even for a small town it’s unprofessional! Shame on you David.
You’re both right – we shouldn’t have bothered asking people what they want. We should have known there would be technical problems, and we should have taken out an ad to promiote the survey in a local newspaper… oh wait…. Perhaps you two could have tried something? No? I thought not. Shame on you…. etc.
The problem is not that were technical issues, as you are right you had no idea you may have them. The problem is you are not honest in your reporting in this article. Your claim that few voted in the poll because they don’t care or have no opinion. You left out the fact there were technical issues and there were a lot of people who tried to vote but couldn’t.
Sorry, Brian. I have been ill and not in the best of humours. The survey was down only a short time, and we fixed it as soon as were aware of it. That is not what kept the numbers down, believe me. What I said about why the numbers were low was not dishonest and I was not trying to shift the blame. Experience has sown us, and others in teh area, that people don’t respond to surveys like that in large numbers. But, as I wrote, at least we tried.