This Walmart thingy is getting weirder by the day.
Love how all the questions lean towards Walmart and don’t ask any questions about property and citizen rights. BTW, South Dakota’s largest AD agency, Lawrence and Schiller is putting out this poll;
Hello and good afternoon!Do you have a few minutes to share your opinions with us, this afternoon or evening?  A new survey is available, but the window to participate in this one is pretty short. The poll is regarding current public opinions within the Sioux Falls community, and will only take 2-3 minutes. I will randomly draw a name tomorrow afternoon and send out a $25 Retail Gift Card to the winner.To take the survey, please click here: http://questionpro.com/t/AKJaTZQM64As always, thank you so much for your time and for participating in the Lawrence & Schiller consumer advisory panel! We greatly appreciate your feedback and opinions.
LOL at the WalMart smiley faces on the second question.
DL: “Love how all the questions lean towards Walmart…”
See Scott – this is how biased you really are… it is almost as if you didn’t even read the questions before seeing the world through your anti-Walmart glasses.
Read the questions again. The very first question asks if you have heard about the plans to build at 85th and Minnesota. No slant… just a question asking if you have heard about it.
Then they ask how you feel about the proposed location. Again no slant – just a simple question which incldues both positive and negative response choices. Then they ask how often you shop at Walmart, they ask what your opinion is of Walmart – none of those questions really have any bias either way.
So how do “all” the questions lean towards Walmart?
Then they mention if Walmart boosted sales of other businesses nearby how you would feel, they ask how you would feel if the city council supported it, and they ask how you would feel if it eased traffic in other areas – those are slanted towards benefits of Walmart.
However then they immediately jump to what you would think if it created an eyesore or caused traffic congestion for residential neighbors – clearly slanted towards SON.
They have a question about increasing property values, and the same question about decreasing property values. Then they ask if they modified their designs how you feel about the plan – which isn’t biased towards or against Walmart.
The final question is whether you agree with citizens suing their elected leaders if they disagree with the decisions those leaders make. This question can be biased if you wish it to be, but not really towards Walmart anymore than it can be towards SON. If you are a proponent of allowing citizens to have options to appeal decisions then you would be in full support of this and would be in favor of this action. Again – not really a pro-Walmart question.
If you were capable of being objective you would clearly see this is not the pro-Walmart survey you think it is. At the very minimum your statement about how “all the questions lean towards Walmart” is just flat out dishonest and anyone who takes the survey could see that.
Frankly I really can’t even tell who or what would have paid for the survey. Walmart would be more apt to use phone polling and push polling to get their bias interjected – this survey doesn’t seem like their style and it is far too small scale for them. Walmart would probably also pop for a few more gift cards rather than one single $25 card because that would serve as an incentive (*cough* bribe *cough*).
The media would do their own surveys so I doubt this is connected to the Argus or Kelo. I can’t see the city popping for this merely because the one question about suing the elected leaders would reflect poorly on all of them.
So who paid for it? The developer? A group of concerned citizens? SON?
“LOL at the WalMart smiley faces on the second question.”
You mean the one where it shows the sad faces to reflect negative responses along with the smile faces for positive responses?
This is even more evidence that Walmart had nothing to do with the survey, because they would never allow their brand standards to be used in such a manner. They wouldn’t want a sad face associated with them because it confuses the brand.
The one thing this survey seems to be doing is confirming biases. At least it serves a purpose.
SON did not pay for the survey, but they do question who did? WM? or maybe even the city of SF. Hopefully that is not the case.
“The final question is whether you agree with citizens suing their elected leaders if they disagree with the decisions those leaders make. ”
This question really bothered me. When elected officials don’t listen to citizens, they have no choice but to sue and take out petitions. Ironically, citizens have been very successful overturning bad decisions by city officials using these sources. The city actually has a piss poor record when it comes to this. It almost makes you question the legality of other things they are doing that we never see? Like keeping the TIF applicants names secret.
While you are right, it wasn’t totally for WM, it still leaned that way. Some of the wording of the questions seemed intentially confusing to skew the results.
I may have figured out who is behind this, more checking. To make you happy Craig, I will make sure I am right before posting it 🙂
Tried to access. Survey has been deactivated by unknown owner. I suspect the city used our tax dollars for this. I’ve sent a letter to Walmart suggesting they locate outside city limits. Their reputation and patriotism could be questioned once they’re associated with Sioux Falls tyranny.
I figured it would be taken down after a few days. I did make a copy of it.
It is not the city, but if my suspicions are correct, this entity does receive money from the city each year for ‘marketing’ purposes. Another possibility is L & S just doing the poll pro-bono, for said entities.
“This question really bothered me. When elected officials don’t listen to citizens, they have no choice but to sue and take out petitions.”
I can’t check the exact wording now, but if I recall the question was specifically about suing. It wasn’t speaking of petition drives. I know there is some disagreement on how the petition process works (some feel fewer signatures should be needed, some others feel more signatures should be needed etc.) but I think most agree that the petition process is necessary. The same probably can’t be said for suing merely because someone doesn’t like a decision – especially if they are trying to claim citizen input isn’t being considered (a lawsuit doesn’t care about citizen input – a petition drive clearly does).
“To make you happy Craig, I will make sure I am right before posting it”
That is probably a good idea. I’d hate for someone to get undeserved credit (blame) for a survey they didn’t pay for.
Not sure you took the survey Scott, but I’m really hoping they draw your name for that gift card! The only thing better would be if the gift card is for Target.
Good job Craig.
FWIW for the hundredth or so time – Property rights do not include the right to control what your neighbor does on their property ex-governmental regulatory or other legal processes. According to the US Supreme court – corporations CAN be your neighbor.