Travis County Commissioners Court
October 18, 2005
Item 7
Since it's 3:20 in the afternoon, let's go back and pick up item 7. Do we have the people with the sur ray results here? All righty. Receive report from bfi regarding public opinion survey on solid waste issues, and take appropriate action. Appreciate y'all's patience this morning. As is often the case, we don't know whether an item will take 15 minutes or a couple of hours.
>> certainly, we understand. I知 william emery with young and associates, a public affairs consulting firm in Austin. We've been in business 25 years and have done public opinion surveys in a broad series vein venues -- of venues. I want to go over a poll we were commissioned to do on landfills. First of all, let me say this is a survey of registered voters in three election precincts in the vicinity of where the landfills are off of giles road. The precincts we used were 104, 141, 154, and that comprises about 5,000 individuals that were in the universe we sampled. We completed 400 interviews which means that the accuracy level of the poll is plus or minus 5 mrs at a 9 #% confidence -- 95% coft interval -- confidence interval. The first thing we ask people is have they heard about the negotiations between bfi and Travis County. There is a moderate level of awareness. 14.3% said they had heard a great deal, and 22.9 said they heard something, that is and I would say that is a moderate level of awareness. The vast majority, 62%, I don't think have heard much at all about the negotiations. We then asked them a series of requests about their experience with the landfill and we asked them with specific problems that often crop up with regard to landfills. We asked if they had had any kind of problem associated with increased truck traffic through their neighborhoods. 33% said they did. 65% said they did not. We asked if they had problems or ad experienced problems with wind-blown trash. 33%, yes, and 65%, no. We asked about illegal roadside dumping, 35%, said they had, and 64% said theyed that not. And we asked about issues of odor and 38% said they had and 61% said they had not. We posed the question in relative conservative ways, and we said "have you ever had a problem," and we didn't try to place it in time, but just said have you ever had experience with this. We then went on to ask them their impression of the operation of the two landfills. Fundamentally their answers are about the same where we ask about waste management or about bfi. When we asked their opinion of how waste management of Texas operates -- more respondents, has an unfavorable opinion and 39% said they were really not sure. When asked their opinion of how bfi operates their landfill, 29.1% were favorable and 38.8 were unfavorable and 14% were not sure. So you have the same kind of rating for both operators. We then asked a question regarding the negotiations with Travis County. And I want to take a second and read you the exact question that we asked so that you have a clear idea of what we -- how we posed the question. Here is the question. "some residents have been supporting negotiations between Travis County and bfi for a binding agreement to close the sunset farms landfill by 2015 or earlier and require additional operating restrictions to contain wind-blown trash and odors. The county would not -- some residents oppose negotiations and say it is better to have no agreement and fight any expanse of the landfill at the state lel, but without an agreement, bfi would be able to apply for an expanse and be able to operate longer than 2015. Based on this do you agree with the negotiations to close the landfill or do uh-oh pose and risk the expansion and no set date for the land ffl to close. 19.7% spoars the idea of opposing negotiations and fighting expansion at the state level. 14% are not sure and several chose knot to say which thea faid. We -- favored. 67.4% says the landfill was in operation when they lived in, and 9.5 said they lived in the neighborhood prior to the operation of the landfill. About a quarter of the respondents were not sure. Of those who did say that the landfills were in operation when they moved into the neighborhood, 72% said they knew about the landfills before they moved in, and about a quarter, 25.5 said they did not know. And 2.6 were not sure. So that is essentially the information that we wanted to print to you today. -- to present to you today, and I値l take any questions that you have.
>> in term office -- in terms of walking somebody through this?
>> about seven minutes.
>> and you have gotten calls like this before, usually it's ratings, but did you do any prequalification to try to find people to fit into a certain slot like when the radio stations are looking for families between the ages -- females between the ages of --
>> no, we use ad random sample of registered voters and a points and clusters sampling approach to be sure we got people who were a representative segment in all three precincts.
>> and was there the opportunity for somebody to say thank you for asking but I choose not to participate --
>> oh, of course.
>> how does that get handled?
>> if someone declines to descru, you thank you them for their time and then they simply are not included into the survey.
>> okay.
>> I might also say that with any individual question in the poll, there is also a designation of no answer. So if someone choose not tell us or not to answer that particular question, they certainly have the right not do that.
>> did anybody ever ask who are do youking this for? Sometimes you can figure out from the questions being asked who the potential client or clients might be, but was that question ever asked and what answer --
>> I知 not aware that question was asked but I will tell you what the standard answer is for people who do these polls, they tell people they are not at liberty to say who the client is.
>> thank you. I知 finished
>>
>> ...from our meeting with them and everybody was quiet and listening to most of what was presented to them. And within the half hour of the representative starting to talk, the animosity grew immediately, so I imagine perhaps mr. Emory, people were more able to get answers. I don't know of anyone that has been contacted that called me that even renotely, remotely answered the way mr. Emory's answer layout. Second, what I didn't get -- well, first of all, I would like to say I actually timed mr. Emory, so if it took seven minutes for him to have -- or his team to have interviewed our people, it took him five minutes to lay out his case here. Do any of you remember any questions that he asked? It is practically impossible to understand what he is asking and I know what's going on. Imagine people that don't even know 141, I don't think I ever contacted anybody in 141. Out of the two-mile radius. I don't know even know if these poor people even knew what was going on and I知 amazed that they could smell it too. So that's my first thing is that I couldn't even understand or comprehend what he was saying fast enough to respond. I would have had to ask him to repeat it at least once in order for me to answer. Second, I don't know if that many people that answer these surveys. I find it strange that they had a big response. Let's say if you interview a thousand people and 25 answer you, so then you say 65% of 25? Or did you give us a number as to how many people were contacted and how many --
>> [inaudible].
>> out of how many?
>> 400 interviews representing about 4900 people.
>> you called 4900 people?
>> no, no, ma'am. The universe of registered voters is 4900 people. And what you do is a draw a random sample and then you contact people and we completed 400 interviews. And the statistical reliability is based upon the number of interviews completed. And when you complete 400 interviews with a -- based on a random sample, your margin of error is plus or minus 5%.
>> okay, so 400, how many of those interviews actually were conducted?
>> all 400 people.
>> all 400 people actually went through the questionnaire with you?
>> you are asking, trek, how many people actually got calls and how many people said I don't care to participate?
>> we had about 10% that chose not to participate.
>> so 40, you would have called 440 people?
>> no, we would have called more than that, but we wouldn't necessarily have gotten everybody on the phone. That's always going to happen with a survey. You have people you're not going to get on the phone. That's one of the reasons to do a points and cluster sample.
>> they didn't call me. I have to say they never called me or any member of my family.
>> I certainly wouldn't call you if I was going to do an interview. I would have your number and you would not be getting a phone call.
>> well, I was not --
>> you were called and it's like okay, I know who answered the -- I have an unfavorable opinion, I致e had a problem with every single one of those things, I was here before they were, and fight, fight, fight at the state level.
>> well, actually I don't answer any surveys who don't tell me who the survey is for, first of all. I don't like this idea that you can tell me that we can not disclose who the survey is for. Why not? If you are going to use this survey publicly in a public forum later on telling people that they were contacted for a landfill company or whoever is doing the survey, why not tell the people you are surveying? What was the big secret?
>> you don't bias the poll at the front end. And what you end up doing is if I知 calling and I say I知 calling for the Travis County democratic party or I知 calling for the Travis County republican party or calling for b.f.i. Or a particular person or group that has an interest in what's going on, then what happens is the respond oepbtsz the phone start to tailor their answers to match the person, either they don't like the person who is sponsoring the surveyor they do like the person who is sponsoring the survey and they start wanting to try to guess at what the answer ought to be rather than responding honestly.
>> well, I find it strange that you were hired piggyback our communications to our citizens [inaudible] having the judge also put out a memo about some questions he had on this, and I find it strange that you piggyback on that and then so people may think it was the judge -- a lot of people told us they thought it was the county doing it. In actual fact they thought it was the county.
>> at the beginning of the survey it says I知 calling for Texas research survey. That's why there is a copy of the questionnaire so if anybody had any question about what was said, it says, hello, I知, and then the interviewer would give their name with Texas survey research. We're conducting a survey about local government erbs.
>> were you aware that judge Biscoe had sent out a small memo with a couple questions just the week before?
>> I don't know about the timing. I know that the judge had sent something out because by formulation of the question on negotiation was based on what I thought was a very fair statement by the judge of what the pros -- what the two contending points of view were regarding negotiation and going -- dealing with it at the state.
>> well, I didn't think that you had the right to appropriate that statement and make it your own. That's what I知 saying. Because a lot of people actually quoted some of the judge's memo and I said no, actually he had nothing to do with it.
>> I didn't use the judge's language. I read the judge's statement of what the two sides were and I used that as a guide to write what I thought was a fair and balanced question on a negotiations issue.
>> well, the fact remained that we had asked them on that Saturday of September 10th to get back with us on some of the -- some negotiation that we had started at the September 10th meeting. And we didn't hear anything back except for people calling us and saying who is doing the survey. You know, I got called about this survey. So I thought it was very fun that I we were trying to bridge the gap and negotiate something with b.f.i. And instead they hire -- they didn't mention it to us on September 10th that they were going to do a survey. We were pretty much outright about what we said. We put out literature. We -- they knew the questions that were asked by the judge, they knew the sheet of paper that we gave the judge based on his questions. Everything that we did was pretty much out in the open. Including our meeting with the citizens. So I find it strange that they turn around and do this survey but don't tell us anything even though we were talking to them in parking lot for about an hour and a half to no avail. So thank you anyway.
>> a fairy quick question. You actually were here on citizens communication after this polling was done over the weekend. At the time you made some statements related to that you felt people were intimidated by the questions.
>> right.
>> and what I -- and I apologize because I知 jumping on, help me understand which question you think here is intimidating or, like I said because if somebody didn't want to answer something, they could either say I don't know, I don't want to answer that or I refuse to participate. Help me understand -- because I was very concerned when you made that statement going oh, my goodness because I didn't know anything about this. It's like I don't know anything about it. I don't know who is doing it.
>> well, when we had the meeting on September 10th, we left with the understanding that b.f.i. Was going to come back to us and let us know if there was any room to negotiate anything. And we didn't hear back from them, but by Monday I was receiving phone calls from people saying who is doing this survey. These people are calling and asking us questions. Some people did not like being asked their age, how long they had lived at this house. I did not know all the questions because some people just didn't like to be asked and they thought it was done by the county and I said I don't think so. But I wasn't aware that b.f.i. Was doing it so it was hard for me to right away say to the people this is b.f.i. Doing it. And so when I came on Tuesday I thought it was unfair for them to intimidate them by asking questions behind people's back. If they wanted to do a survey, why didn't they come at this meeting and ask these exact same questions. Why not?
>> they would be setting the universe as opposed to -- it's like I would love it in terms of if I知 doing polling on the -- that I do it at a meeting of all the people who know and love me as opposed to doing a truly random survey to find out what are the positives and negatives and ing people who it is the client is. That would be just as much as a push-pull in the other way in terms of that.
>> I知 joyce best of northeast Travis County and I would like to speak to that. The first phone call I received the individual had been called Sunday afternoon. She asked who was being paid for this poll and was told I don't know. She also let them know what she thought about the landfills and she in her own words said to me because she could not remember the exact question that -- and this is why I say this was intimidating or an attempt to be intimidating. Do you want to negotiate and know that they are going to leave or do you want to take your chances on getting an expansion by dealing with the state. Now, that's sort of the gist of it. Now, I must say my husband received a call from them when I wasn't there, but he did ablely represent our viewpoint. And he said much the same thing, that he felt that they were definitely trying to scare us into believing that -- trying to deal with it with the state was much less desirable option. And I suppose part of my puzzlement is based on the fact that back in July when b.f.i. Insisted that we meet with them on a as a result y morning when we had no wish to meet with them but did so anyway, they would not put out the money to send individual letters to people in the community or to do anything to publicize the event except send an e-mail to some people. And the rest of it was up to us. So I知 stunned that they have this outlay now for this questionnaire and survey about which we knew nothing. And I know you are aware that in response to the judge's questions we had our own questionnaire which we submitted. So far we have 225 or 30 responses and not a single one of them says we think we ought to negotiate. I don't know what the judge has received, but those are the ones we received and turned in. I would also like to point out that the precinct 141 encompasses part of the business park, a large number of apartments, and it is further than two miles from the landfill, and yes, I知 sure those people have experienced odors, but I doubt that many of them, since they are renting property rather than property owners, would have been too concerned about keeping up with these kinds of issues on a day-to-day basis. So based on that alone, that 30% that came from precinct 141 were probably truly ill informed about what the issues were having heard only one side of the story. I知 not at all surprised by these results. But I do believe that from what we have heard, and if you ask why was -- did this seem intimidating, I would just like to read a paragraph that one of our residents wrote after the Saturday morning meeting. When the same kinds of things were issues. The northeast residents implore you to do the right thing. This is an open letter comment to the Commissioners. And protect your constituents by standing with the residents and-posing any expansion and by advocating that the landfills be forced to comply with existing statutes or shut down now. During the past four months at three separate public meetings residents have met to discuss the b.f.i. Contract. On all three occasions the residents voiced the same new hampshire unkweuf call statement no expansion of the northeast landfills. You have asked for our statement. Now we beg to you vote according to what we have said. No contract for expansion with either b.f.i. Or waste management. He says that b.f.i. Threatens that if we do not accede to our demands they will punish us by attempting on obtain a far greater expansion than they are proposing in their most recent so-called agreement. If this does not fit a textbook definition of ex tors what does. You can see the mind set of the people at the Saturday meeting had. Then next comes this occur and it's couched in fairly different terms. Not indicating in the wording of the survey a limited expansion of the landfill does not indicate we want to go 75 feet higher than we are right now. There's a lot of difference there.
>> joyce, the person that you -- the organization has interviewed or contacted from whatever questionnaire it came from the judge, the suggestion there is they do not want to negotiate [inaudible] nor do they want to suggest any type of expansion through that particular negotiation? Am I understanding you correctly?
>> we could go back as for as 2002 and we have a thousand people who signed a petition saying the same thing. I知 not impressed by a sample, 40% of whom don't live in the immediate proximity of the landfill and 60% who said they really know very little about the issue.
>> help me process something you just said in terms of questions and concerns about the universe that was picked. Because you felt it really ought to be discussed as the closest to the landfill because that's where the greatest impact is. So how should I process all the e-mails and the canvassing of neighborhoods being done by Texas campaign for the environment that occurred not in that area but in areas of precinct 2 off of interstate 35 and dessau and breaker and applegate who even more so do not fit the definition that you just said there in terms of people who do not live in that immediate proximity.
>> I can't answer that. I知 not familiar with their campaign area or how they conduct that or choose their sample or anything of that sort.
>> [inaudible].
>> I can only tell you that as trek had indicated, this particular precinct, I think there's only one person and that precinct with whom we have ever spoken about landfill and he was a city official at the time.
>> at 141?
>> well, 141 is up here.
>> they were working my neighborhood and the allen dale neighborhood and neighborhoods in central Austin that are even further --
>> I would like to answer that question. I would like to answer that question. Because as far as I知 concerned, if you go door to door and you spend the time with a person, if the person is interested, they will ask questions and you keep answering until the questions are answered. If people come to the door doing a survey about whoever wants to run and I know who 2 e guy is and I usually get a lot of answer. If you ask a question not on the survey they basically do not answer it. A sure faye is tpwaeufl done on the telephone with no face to face contact. I don't care if they go all the way to main -r or san marcos, I don't care where they go as long as you have a face to face relationship with the person asking you the question. This to me is -- I知 sorry, chicken do-do because they were not contacted face to face or I had a hard time following mr. Emory as he was telling you this. I find it strange these people know how to answer these questions just like that in seven minutes. It's too much for a person to comprehend. With a signed name and address, which we did. They are not providing us with names and addresses so as far as I知 concerned I don't know who they called really. I want to trust mr. Emory because he's probably a very reliable survey person. I don't know him. I知 sure he would not put his reputation on the line, but frankly I don't know who they called.
>> I would just like to respond to Commissioner Sonleitner that I think you might be comparing apples to oranges. In one instance I think a lot of what Texas campaign for the environment does, it deals with community issues that you don't necessarily have to live next to the landfill. It's matters of right and wrong, how do we want to deal with the trash we all create and what should be right and wrong ways to deal with it. So I think that what this survey was trying to [inaudible] was your particular life being harmed or damaged by these neighbors. So to bring that up, to me, seems like a totally different issue that does not relate at all.
>> well, I consider all of this to be valid input. That people who do live in central Austin are allowed to have an opinion about the landfill.
>> I agree.
>> and I also believe people who are called on an anonymous public survey opinion that specifically targets the area most impacted by this I also consider that to be valid input and anybody can weigh the validity of each. So I知 not questioning, I知 just trying to get [inaudible] that there is want to go discount an anonymous -- I won't say, you know, valid survey that may be out there, that that gets less importance than somebody going door to door in neighborhoods five and ten miles away from this same impact zone and saying that one is more valid than the other. I think they are both valuable pieces of information and I don't discount either one.
>> I don't either, but to compare them together at the same time is wrong. I feel.
>> well, they all wind up in my in box at the county at the same time.
>> it was unfair comparison.
>> mr. Mcaffee.
>> good afternoon, Commissioners, judge. I do want to ditto that I think that the inclusion of precinct 141, let me say that it is in the least direction of wind, the least direction of inversions. It's the most unlikely area to experience the odors, basically, in a two-mile radius probably of the landfills. Also the people who live in that area have very little reason to ever drive toward the landfill. They are basically going to Austin. Just they probably almost never -- so they are not going to see all the litter, the illegal dumping that happens because you really -- they probably almost never go that direction. And so -- so I think that was really just waters down the results of this. Let me say number 5, which in my opinion is maybe the most important question, you know, if we were asked this question, we would have a different answer -- we might have a different answer than we have come to after all these years of dealing with these folks is the devil is in the details. The words binding agreement that are used in question number 5 as we know, it's hard to get anything that's binding with these folks. So, you know, to suggest to the person answering this question that, you know, that there is this binding agreement that will close them and get them out of there by 2015 doesn't say anything about the amount of intake. They could quadruple their intake and these people would be maybe a little bummed out they answered yes, let's go to the negotiations. We know there's a lot more to question number 5 than just some residents have been supporting negotiations between Travis County, b.f.i. For a binding agreement to close. So I think it's just a real unfair way to even represent that question to people and for that matter their answers to us. Thank you.
>> thank you. Anybody else on this item? Thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 18, 2005 10:46 AM