Poll in favor of cutting commission

Are we all in agreement the Sherrill Poll was accurate? If you saw Friday?s paper and the side-by-side comparisons, you?ll notice it was even more accurate than most national election polls I?ve seen.

Hey, I?m no mathematical whiz, I simply took political polling back in college and I?ve tweaked my method over the past four years. It still all comes down to getting the right random samples at the polls to give some insight as to who people are voting for. It also comes down to a little luck that you don?t take too little or too much of a sample.

With that said, there was a question added to the Sherrill Poll which was not on the ballot. The question was straight from my pet peeve asking voters if they wanted to keep the county commission at 24 or cut it to 12. And, just as I predicted the poll was 71 percent to cut the commission in half and 29 percent to leave it the same at 24 members.

Now, if we are agreed that the Sherrill Poll was accurate, then this means there is overwhelming public sentiment to cut the commission in half. Folks, this vote wasn?t far shy of 3-to-1 to cut the commission and it far outranked any mandate any candidate received from the voters this election.

In addition to the raw numbers, the folks I talked to were very vocal about wanting the commission cut in half. As a matter of fact, next to being bothered by too many signs and candidate supporters at the early voting polls, cutting the commission in half was the No. 2 biggest beef on the minds of voters. Yes, even more than the races on the ballot.

Is there something the commission isn?t getting here? I said months ago the people were overwhelmingly for cutting the commission but it fell on deaf ears. I think I even predicted about 70 percent were for cutting the commission.

Of course our commission, like on many issues, hemmed and hawed around, wanting to protect their job security. Some commissioners claimed they were flooded with calls from constituents urging them to keep 24 on the commission. Perhaps these commissioners are listening to the wrong people, seeing these alleged callers aren?t reflecting what the voters at large have to say.

I?m sure there?ll be a new excuse in justifying the oversized commission now. Maybe they?ll say I made up the poll numbers and that I just made lucky guesses at the rest of the races.

Of course, there?s one way to settle it ? let the voters decide on it later this year in a referendum. However, this will never happen because they know what the voters will say. And, even a referendum isn?t binding. I?m sure there?d be ways around that.

As I said, this is my pet peeve seeing we are wasting all this money helping fund gridlock. Plus, my new peeve coming out of this whole situation is the way the commission is thumbing its noses at the will of the people. The mandate to cut the commission is there but the commissioners think they are smarter than us voters. I guess us country bumpkins aren?t smart enough to make such decisions. We need to leave the commission alone when it comes to affairs of the county.

Hey, county commissioners elections are in August. It?s not hard to find out how your two commissioners voted on cutting the commission last time. If need be, call up here. I?ll keep a list handy in case the voters want to do some cutting themselves this summer.

Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].