Survey Says: Not New Paltz

The Town has posted the "Draft Public Input Element" as part of the Comprehensive Plan process here. Two points will be awarded to the first Gadfly reader who identifies kt's participant quote on page three.

Putting aside for the moment the merits of surveys in general, as promised, here is my analysis of the Town comprehensive survey results - in terms of whether or not the resulting sample is representative of Town Residents.

As I said in my previous post on this topic, "Done well, random sampling methods include contact with a small number of people, the results of which can represent the entire population under study. The answers obtained from a scientific probability survey are not just answers from those individuals who responded but more importantly, because of the design and methods by which the data is collected, can be used to generalize to the population as a whole. We want a methodology that ensures results are an estimate of what would have been obtained if all adults in the New Paltz were interviewed."

With that in mind, I compared the demography of the survey results with that of the Census. (Admittedly, somewhat old since the last Census was in 2000.) My analysis finds that:

As far as the number of adults in household and age categories(except for age 65+), the data is not comparable to Census. With respect to the presence of children in HH, those age 65+, and college (only) graduates, the survey is representative. However, there are some significantly underrepresented groups: Renters, Residents not in the labor force, Households earning less than $50,000 per year, and Residents with less than a college degree. Correspondingly, these group are overrepresented (which skews the results towards the views of these groups): Homeowners, Employed persons, Households earning more than $50,000 per year, and Residents with post-graduate degrees. Also worthy of note, since certain questions were absent from the survey, we have no comparison to actual population for Gender and Race/Ethnicity.

Based on this, my conclusion is that, whether you like the content of the survey or not is irrelevant, as the survey results are not representative of the population of the Town of New Paltz.

kt Tobin Flusser

Wake up and smell the comprehensive plan

It seems that it's comprehensive plan season, with both the town and the village looking at the master plan which should be guiding all of our planning and zoning decisions.

The last time the village's master plan was updated, the zoning was never actually changed to conform to the new plan, so it didn't do much good. The town's plan isn't really cut out to deal with the types of development pressures we've seen in recent years, notwithstanding the Great Recession that we're now enjoying.

I don't know if surveys were in vogue when either plan was last updated, but they certainly are now. Margaret Human expressed in this week's paper that the town's process is hampered by the reliance on surveys. Meanwhile, the group looking at whether or not they are actually an official body that's been charged with looking at the master plan is debating the role that surveys should play in the village's process.

I can understand how statistical modeling can make it viable to gather data from large numbers of people, such as during the census. Using a questionnaire can also be useful to standardize responses so that they can be analyzed meaningfully. Statistics have their purpose, but if they're given undue weight in a community this size, they could do more harm than good.

The trouble with a survey is that the questions, to a large degree, presuppose the possible answers. A group of a half a dozen or so volunteers, no matter how talented, shouldn't be burdened with coming up with truly fair questions, and I have no faith in an outside consultant capturing the breadth of New Paltz.

Public input into these processes should not be limited to that sort of questioning - it's important for people to have other ways to express opinions. I think the best public participation comes from really controversial public hearings, such as the one on Crossroads (cue "where are they now?" music).

Most public hearings aren't even attended by crickets, so it's important to highlight the potential dangers of comprehensive plan updates. People who do not come and speak at these public hearings will not have any say in changes that could include:

• Severely limiting your rights to develop your land as you see fit.
• Endangering the wetlands and sensitive natural habitats.
• Keeping out businesses that will keep our taxes down.
• Letting in excessive commercial development that could lower property values.
• Taking of your land in all but name.
• Turning New Paltz into another Long Island mall town.

Extreme? Sure. But language like that will bring out interested people from all perspectives, and guarantee the level of participation that Margaret would like to see - a heck of a lot more than the usual suspects.

By all means, do some surveying, but don't give the information to the politicians and don't trust the figures if they feel wrong in your gut.

One Poll, a Good One, please

The town board is debating the best approach for integrating a community survey component into the process of developing our new town master plan. The town has hired a team of consultants to construct the updated plan in consultation with the public. Thus far, qualitative focus groups and a community forum have been held. The consultants are also planning to field a mail survey in order to include a quantitative, scientifically selected sample of the town populace.

Councilwoman Kitty Brown is concerned that the mail survey will not incorporate enough of the public and would like a companion survey to be published in the New Paltz Times. Councilman Jeff Logan and Supervisor Toni Hokanson were open to the idea and the board has decided , while not supportive, agreed to ask the consultants if this is feasible.

While I admire Kitty Brown’s desire to broaden inclusion, in this instance, as a rigid methodologist when it comes to survey research*, I have to advise the town to not take this approach. In order for the science of the mail survey to be sound, the first and only exposure to the questions needs to happen when people receive them in the mail. It needs to be an independent, stand alone document, one that is especially not embedded within a newspaper that is currently reporting on the issues it addresses. The intent of including a survey in the project was to provide a scientifically valid sample of the town residents and offering the survey via the newspaper diminishes the validity of the mail survey’s results.

That said, I also have some serious concerns about the mail survey methodology. Done well, random sampling methods include contact with a small number of people, the results of which can represent the entire population under study. The answers obtained from a scientific probability survey are not just answers from those individuals who responded but more importantly, because of the design and methods by which the data is collected, can be used to generalize to the population as a whole. We want a methodology that ensures results are an estimate of what would have been obtained if all adults in the New Paltz were interviewed.

Firms typically chose to use mail surveys over telephone surveys because of the significant difference in cost. (A sound telephone survey would cut into at least half the budget of this entire project.) But, the trade off for lower cost is that mail surveys have notoriously low response rates, making the case for representativeness a tough sell. The consultants estimate a return rate of 8% after mailing out the survey to 1000 randomly selected households. How do we know the responses of these 80 residents represent the views of all New Paltzians? We can’t know, the response rate is too low and the sample size too small to justify the science of random sampling. (Which btw, assumes 100% response rate, but lower rates have proven sufficient, just not that low). My advice is to mail out more surveys, possibly staggered in waves of 500 over time, in order to generate 300 interviews with a margin of error of +/- 6%.

Then what? Population parameters provided by the U.S. Census can be compared to the demographics of the survey sample to ensure representativeness. If it is close but not quite close enough, a statistical process called weighting can be employed, but this should only be done if guided by strict rules… in lay people’s terms, it should only “tweak” the data, not stretch the truth, so to speak. In the end, when we review the data, we must ask: do the demographics reflect our population, as we know New Paltz to be, based on census data? 82% white, 48% college educated, 54% homeowners, 28% households with children? If the composition of the resulting sample is similar to the make up of our community based on census data, we can be confident the survey yielded information that can be generalized to the entire population of New Paltz.

kt

* My M.S. degree is in Social Research and just last year, after eleven years, I left my job as Assistant Director at the Marist Institute for Public Opinion

One Week... Three Important Meetings

In the next week there are three VERY important events for New Paltz town/village/school district residents to attend.

Two involve the schools:

what: Superintendent Unveiling Early Draft of 09-10 School District Budget
when: Wednesday, February 4th, 7pm
where: High School Audion

what: Middle School Renovation Feasibility Study Presentation
when: Wednesday, February 11th, 7pm
where: High School Audion

more info at: http://www.newpaltz.k12.ny.us/newpaltz/site/default.asp
and... http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=59497249663#/event.php?eid=59497249663

One has to do with the Town Master Plan:

what: New Paltz Comprehensive Plan Public Workshop
when: Saturday, February 7th, 10am-12pm
where: SUNY New Paltz Student Union, Multi-purpose Room

more info at: http://www.townofnewpaltz.org and...
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=59497249663#/event.php?eid=58639699336

and if you are home right now and it is before 7pm on Monday, February 2nd... go check out the Martin Luther King Jr Day Celebration at SUNY New Paltz, Lecture Center 102

more info here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=59497249663#/event.php?eid=40279018289

So many meetings, so little time! The fun never ends!

Man with a Plan

So Ken Wishnick, former town board member and longtime REALTOR®, is set to become the town's new planner. Ken has a degree in urban planning and, as I've learned with conversations with Ken over the past few years, a sincere interest in how things work in this community. We both were participants in the Chamber of Commerce's Economic Discussion Group, facilitated by the late Peter Rossi. Ken later took up the mantle of that group, reshaping and broadening its purpose. He also renamed it, but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called now.

Kitty Brown broke ranks with the remainder of the town council in voting against hiring Ken for this newly-minted, $41,000 a year part-time job (although at those rates, I seriously should consider working part-time for the town myself). She was concerned that only two candidates had been interviewed for the position, one that would wield considerable influence over the town's comprehensive plan. Toni Hokanson poo-pooed Kitty's misgivings, saying that she ran ads in several papers and advertised it on the planner's web site, so two candidates was all they were going to get.

According to Toni, they're just waiting for the green light from the town's Ethics Committee, since Ken plans on keeping up his real estate license. After all, Town Planner is only a part-time job worth about $60,000 a year with benefits, so Ken will need to do what has to do in order to keep food on the table.

Now I know Ken, and it's very likely that he is qualified to do the job. I do have a couple of questions, though.

1. Did you think about a consultant? What's the rush to hire a new town employee when professional planners can be hired on an as-needed basis? The village uses Greenplan, a professional planning firm right in New Paltz, and there are probably a few others in the area that could be hired for big projects, or even on retainer.
2. He wants to keep his real estate license? Are you kidding me? Why was this even brought up for a vote? I might not have voted for Ken even if he had already given up his license, because his perspective and experience are focused on land-as-investment. This is an important consideration for a businessman, but a municipal planner must consider issues in a broader context. If the Ethics Committee decides Ken doesn't need to give up his license, someone needs to take a long, hard look at our local laws.
3. $41K and benefits is a part time job? I can hear Toni now explaining that the town needs to be competitive. I don't buy it. At the very least you need to find enough work to keep your planner busy for forty hours a week. I don't care if he's unbending staples, Toni, just keep him at his desk for forty hours. I'll bet Paul Brown is qualified to do that job, and he doesn't have a degree in Urban Planning, and he's at town hall for close to forty hours a week for free.

The bright spot is that having a planner in place is one of the stumbling blocks that the town has used to impede any meaningful update of the comprehensive plan. There are a lot more of them ahead, but this puts us one step closer to fixing what's broken.