The San Bruno Beacon

The San Bruno City Council and Manager didn't think the City of San Bruno's $500,000 (+/-) budget deficit was bad enough, so they paid some polling company approximately $48,200 to conduct an opinion poll.

That's right folks; the best idea the brain trust down at San Bruno's City Hall could come up with to solve San Bruno's annual $500,000 +/- Budget deficit was to pay some polling company approximately $48,200 to conduct a poll that they say supports the proposition that San Bruno's residents want to increase the City's Sales Tax. The cover story for this poll, to support more taxes on San Bruno's residents, was that the San Bruno City Council and Government wanted to know what San Bruno's residents were thinking.

The "independent" polling company, hired by San Bruno City Manager Jackson and the City Council, claims that they found hundreds of people in San Bruno who said they want a sales tax increase in San Bruno. Big deal. I'll bet on Election Day this year we'll find thousands of San Bruno residents who will say they don't want the City of San Bruno to increase the City Sales Tax to pay for the fiscal mismanagement of the San Bruno City Manager and Council.

The reason why so many political / opinion polls are wrong is that polling is an inaccurate science plagued by sampling error, nonresponse bias, response bias, problems in the way poll questions are worded, problems in the way poll participants are chosen (i.e., coverage bias), etc.

One of the highlights of the San Bruno City Council's polling escapades at their June 26th meeting was when some guy (who ran for the Council once and lost) showed up at the Council meeting really wanting to tell everybody watching on television how much he supported the idea of raising the sales tax and why raising the sales tax was such a great idea. This guy, the only person to speak on the sales tax matter during the public hearing, said that he had received a $75 check for attending the focus group conducted by the polling company hired by the City of San Bruno. He said, ".....they [the polling company] give you compensation to entice you to come [to the group] because sometimes you can't get people to study groups". He then handed over a white envelope to somebody saying that the envelope contained the $75 stipend he received from the polling company and asked that the $75 be placed in the City's General Fund. Unrehearsed, spontaneous moments like these make San Bruno's City Council meetings so exciting to watch.

What I would really like to see is San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson showing up at a future San Bruno City Council meeting with a personal check to pay back the money that she has borrowed [i.e., her "City" loan] for her personal use from the City of San Bruno.