McHenry County Blog

A press release from State Rep. Barb Wheeler:

Rep. Wheeler asks for public input

Barb Wheeler

Fox Lake, IL… With the 98th General Assembly scheduled to come back to Springfield in just one week, State Rep. Barbara Wheeler (R-Crystal Lake) is asking her constituents to let her know their opinions on issues expected to come up in the next year. Wheeler has written a survey using a free electronic service and is asking her constituents to follow the link and let her know how they feel.

“My office has been open for about two weeks now and I already have received people reaching out to me on issues that are important to them,” said Wheeler.

“My email inbox is full with people concerned about hydraulic fracturing and Medicaid funding. I am asking my constituents to let me know how they feel on these and many other issues.”

Residents of the 64th Legislative District can go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LJLZNLY to fill out the survey. Rep. Wheeler’s survey focuses on major issues expected to come up in the 98th General Assembly and issues that directly affect the people of Lake and McHenry Counties. The 64th Legislative District is composed of Eastern McHenry and Western Lake Counties, including municipalities such as Crystal Lake, McHenry, Spring Grove, Fox Lake, Antioch, and Lake Villa.

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The questions in Wheeler’s poll follow:

Do you support allowing law abiding citizens the right to conceal and carry fire arms should they go through proper training?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

Do you support a ban on all assault weapons in the State of Illinois?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

Do you support a state moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for the extraction of natural gas?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

Do you support the extension of Route 53 into Northern Lake County?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

The Supreme Court ruled that under the Federal Affordable Care Act, states have the choice of expanding their Medicaid coverage at the expense of the Federal Government. Do you support the State of Illinois expanding its Medicaid coverage to be paid for with federal dollars?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

Do you support a public employee pension reform plan that would shift costs from State government to local government?   Yes

No

Undecided

 

Do you support a public employee pension reform plan that would require current employees to choose their benefits, either a 3% yearly Cost of Living Increase or healthcare coverage rather than the current plan giving them both?   Yes

No

Undecided

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Some of the above questions have more to them than the question suggests.

Expanding Medicaid, for example, could leave state taxpayers holding the bag when the Federal financing is substantially reduced.

The shifting of pension burden to local government has been suggested for teachers, not state employees.

The cost of living increase versus health care is aimed at state employees and university employees, as I understand it.

There is room for comments, however.

The Crystal Lake Library from the parking lot.

Crystal Lake Library card holder Stephen Willson is on a mission.

You can read his analysis of the Library’s expansion plans here. There have been ten comments so far, including one that started, “This is the most informative article I have read concerning the Library expansion…”

Now Willson reports on a survey he took of patrons at the Library.

Of 58 people he asked, 50 participated.

They, Library personnel “shooed” him away.

Here’s what he found:

“The Crystal Lake Library Board says the library is so crowded it needs to be twice as large as it is now and needs a parking garage, too.

“In 22 years, I’ve never felt crowded there, and I’ve never had a problem finding a parking space, either.

“But I believe public policy decisions should be based on hard evidence, so I decided to stand outside the library and conduct a survey.

“Eventually I was shooed away by the library staff, but not before I got 50 responses. Here are the results.

• “What percent of the time have you been UNABLE TO FIND A PARKING SPACE?
  74%, NEVER; weighted response rate, 1.5% of the time
• “What percent of the time have you had to WAIT TWO WEEKS or more for a book or movie you wanted?
  62%, NEVER; weighted response rate, 7.6% of the time
• What percent of the time do you FEEL CROWDED in the library?
  80%, NEVER; weighted response rated, 4.3% of the time

“As a professional researcher with more than 30 years experience, I followed good survey protocol.

“The subjects were randomly selected, not self-selected, as in online surveys.

“I was careful to ask every question exactly the same way.

“And I was careful not to identify whether I was with the library or for the library or against the library. The sample size is large enough for statistically significant results.

“The response rate was 86%, which is very good.

“I think the data speak for themselves.

“If the library wishes to confirm or dispute my data by conducting their own properly structured and executed survey, that would be great.

“Of course, they’ll have to stand on the sidewalk or get shooed away.”

A press release from State Rep. candidate David McSweeney about a survey he just took:

Subject: Survey results

Kent Gaffney, Dave McSweeney and Danielle Rowe at the Young Repubilcans Forum.

The following are results from a survey among N=301 Republican primary voters in Illinois House District 52. This survey was conducted February 9-11, 2012. The margin of error to the results is +5.7% at the .95 test level.

Poll results show David McSweeney has nearly universal name awareness and a strong positive image rating. Nine in ten (91%) respondents indicate they have heard the name David McSweeney and 43% have a positive impression of him. Additionally, McSweeney’s name awareness and positive image ratings are much higher than his opponents’ ratings.

The name awareness and image ratings among all candidates are as follows:

• McSweeney: 43% positive, 7% negative, 40% no opinion, and 9% never heard of
• Gaffney: 15% positive, 3% negative, 47% no opinion, and 36% never heard of
• Rowe: 3% positive, 3% negative, 31% no opinion, and 62% never heard of

As a result of relatively high name awareness and positive image, McSweeney has a strong lead on the ballot.

Nearly half of respondents (47%) indicate they would vote for McSweeney if the election were held today, while 9% would vote for Gaffney and 4% would vote for Rowe.

Two in five voters (40%) are still undecided.

Five in six respondents (84%) indicate they will definitely vote in the upcoming Republican primary election while the other 16% indicate they might vote. McSweeney earns 49% among those who will definitely vote and he enjoys above average support (54%) among “hard Rs” (voters who voted in all three of the last three GOP primary elections).

MATT GAMBLE
Baselice & Associates, Inc.

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Let me put the hard R’s survey results so that you can read it better:

• McSweeney – 47%
• Gaffney – 9%
• Rowe – 4%

The following showed up on State Rep. candidate Dave McSweeney’s web site today.

There is no mention of the percentage of those who have not made up their minds.

I asked Gaffney’s campaign manager Nicholas McNeely for his take. Here it is:

McSweeney touted a similar poll with similar results in December of last year and the message is that same, over 50% of the voters in the district are undecided. All this poll shows me is that the voters have largely not focused on any one candidate and the race is wide open.

Into my inbox today arrived the results of the Rockford Tea Party online Presidential survey.

To its credit, the organization reveals the number of participants–281.

As you can see most were Republicans.  Two-thirds self-identified themselves as such.

Significantly, however, the Rockford Tea Party has attracted a large percentage of Independents.  Twenty-five percent said that was what they were.

“Other” was a high 8.2%.  Considering the concentration of Libertarians in Rockford and looking at the high support of Presidential candidate Ron Paul in the poll (he ran first), my guess is that most of these were supporters of the Libertarian Party.

Party affiliations of thoes participating in the Rockford Tea Party Presidential Poll

Ron Paul won more votes in the Rockford Tea Party poll than anyone else. He got almost 29% of the vote.

Second was Ron Santorum with 22%.

Newt Gingrich came in third with 18.5%.  I would note that the poll started while Gingrich was riding high…before he declared that he would be the Republican Presidential nominee.

Michele Bachmann had 13.9%.

Rick Perry got 7.8%, beating Mitt Romney’s 6.8%.

Only John Huntsman was lower than Romney with 1.8%.

The winner was Ron Paul. Rick Santorum ran second.

We Ask America, the only polling firm that called Joe Walsh’s victory over Melissa Bean, has surveyed Iowa Republicans.  I thought you might find the results interesting, because Herman Cain is still a leader, even though people were questioned after a week’s negative national coverage.  The calls were made on Sunday, November 6th.

The figures show Cain at 22%, Gingrich at 18% and Romney at 15%.

A press release from Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore:

Residents of Grafton Township now have the ability to show the members of the township board how they would cast their vote regarding the township tax levies for the Township and Road District. By visiting the township website, www.graftontownshipsupervisor.us residents can vote on whether they want to see the board increase the levies, decrease the levies, or levy for a zero change in the levy.

The place on the page to register your opinion looks like this.

“As the Township Supervisor, I will use this poll to determine how I will vote when this matter comes before the board. I hope the rest of the board will also consider the public’s response when they determine their vote sometime in December. The question that is being posed is as follows:

If you were on the Grafton Township Board, how would you vote regarding the Levy? (A Levy is the use of government authority to impose or collect a tax.)

1. I would increase the levy.
2. I would decrease the levy.
3. I would make no change to the levy.

The website has had more than 15,000 hits to date. It includes township financial information, press releases, upcoming township events, meeting video and audio recordings, food pantry hours, financial assistance information and downloadable forms, a sign-up form to receive emails from the township, etc. Please visit here and vote on the

• increase or
• decrease

of township taxes.

The paper that has done everything it could to make sure that 8th District Congresswoman Melissa Bean gets re-elected is running a major article in Sunday’s.

The Daily Herald's web site headline on the article.

Melissa Bean

Joe Walsh

Lowering the risk of being on the wrong side is my guess.

The Daily Herald relentlessly publicized Republican challenger Joe Walsh’s financial woes with regard to a condo purchase gone bad, plus other stuff that I can’t remember.

The effort to make certain that liberal Melissa Bean had no significant opposition was so blatant that I thought at the time the paper should send Bean a statement estimating the value of its in-kind campaign contribution to her.

But now reporter Kimberly Pohl has been tasked to try to explain why Walsh is still in the race. It’s as if she had read my article explaining the New York Times blogger Nate Silver having lowered Bean’s odds of winning from 97.8% to 80.6%.

Results from the We Ask America phone poll. Click to enlarge.

This comes over two weeks after a very large (1,381–the largest I have ever seen in a congressional race–We Ask America telephone poll showed a 41% to 41% tie, with Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer getting 5%.

That, bizarrely, showed up in the Quincy Herald-Whig.

Strangely enough, the poll interviewed 56.1% woman and and 43.88% men.

This is what pollsters call "cross tabs."

Most neutral observers would suggest than overweights women. And since women were going for Bean 44% to 40% , maybe the survey really indicated that Walsh was ahead.

The article ends by summarizing University of Illinois at Springfield Professor Kent Redfield cautioning “that no Democrat in a potential swing district should feel safe, particularly with such strong anti-incumbent sentiment.”

Keith Nygren

Mike Mahon

Complicated it is not.

In fact, the survey is one of the simplest I have ever run across.

It’s being conducted in the McHenry County Sheriff’s race.

I would assume that incumbent Keith Nygren is the only one with enough money to do such calling.

He had $73,324.17 in the bank at the end of July. Democratic Party opponent Mike Mahon had $14,116.74.

Green Party candidate Gus Philpott was not mentioned in the questioning and has apparently not raised or spent the $3,000 necessary to require one to file a campaign disclosure report with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

The only demographic information requested was whether one was a Republican or a Democrat, I am informed.

I wonder how the over one-third of the people who identify themselves as Independents replied.

If it is canvass, that is, calling people to see who support a given candidate, a lot more people will be called.

So, if you get a call, please drop me an email and tell me about it.

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Update:  I now have been told gender was requested.  If anyone got one of the calls and can add information, please do so in a comment.

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And, for those who are politically interested, please be my ears on these telephone calls. Jot down a bit of what is said and send me an email. If you get mailers, especially from county board candidates and in the 8th congressional district, I would appreciate your keeping me informed when they come.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog showed the questions being asked 8,000 households about desires and improvements wanted locally.

The survey is entitled,

“McHenry County Healthy Communities 2010.”

Today, we’ll move on the a rating of park/recreation services, something called “local community or village services,” and land use.

Five choices are offered below for two questions. Next is an opportunity to explain why one has rated the services “poor” or “fair,” rather than “excellent” or “good.”

Quality of . . .
28. Your local park district and recreational services
29. Your local community or village services
30. If you rated any of these characteristics above as fair or poor, please tell what is needed or should be improved to make these excellent or good in your community.

Next comes “Lane Use.” Please note that the word “growth” appears only once.

When I was state representative in the late 1970′s, I twice sent out questionnaires to every household with a registered voter asking the question,

“Are you in favor of state and local governmental actions that will encourage population growth in your area?”

In about 1976, the results from my district (all of McHenry County, northern Kane and DeKalb Counties, southern Boone County, including Belvidere, and the far eastern part of Winnebago County, largely unpopulated at the time) was 58% “No.”

About two years later, the negative feedback had increased to 80-some percent–86%–I think.

2030 Land Use Plan (Click to enlarge)

A similar question would have been useful here, especially considering the recent 2030 Land Use Plan fight.

Incidentally, when sorted by zip code, my survey showed areas which had seen growth didn’t want more, while those who had not grown much wanted to grow.

But onto the questions in this year’s survey:

LAND USE

31-36. Please indicate whether you Agree, Disagree or are Not Sure about each statement.

31. I am pleased with the way that land has been developed in McHenry County.

32. Landowners should be allowed to use their land however they want.

Wetlands in McHenry County (Click to enlarge)

33. I am willing to pay higher taxes to preserve wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas.34. Maintaining our present natural areas such as forests, prairies or wetlands is more important than acquiring new ones.

35. Preserving open space is as important as residential or commercial growth.

36.Government should require residents to use water conservation practices.

I note with pleasure that question 33 mentions higher taxes will be needed “to preserve wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas.”

Both costs and benefits should be addressed in a questionnaire like this.