09/02/2006

Voters rankled by poll on deck

Telemarketing firm asks residents what influenced them

By bill o'brien

bobrien@record-eagle.com

and Brian Mcgillivary

bmcgillivary@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — City resident Julie Jeffs tried to explain to the caller why she voted against the recent parking deck bond downtown, but the pollster kept asking about the local newspaper.

"I said, 'Nobody tells me how to vote,' " Jeffs said. "It wasn't like they were interested in what I thought should happen with the property."

Jeffs was among numerous city voters contacted this week by an East Lansing-based telemarketing firm. The calls came in the wake of voters' lopsided, Aug. 8 rejection of a $16 million bond issue for public parking and other work tied to a multi-use development proposal on West Front Street by downstate developer Federated Properties.

The survey rankled some residents and officials who suspect project developers and supporters want to make the Record-Eagle a scapegoat in an election in which more than 70 percent of city voters rejected the bond issue.

Residents were asked if they voted, how they voted, and why they voted as they did.

Then they were asked for their sources of information on the proposal: the Record-Eagle, radio, television or city commission meetings. The last question was how Record-Eagle stories and editorials on the project and the developers affected their vote, with four choices ranging from a "big effect" to none at all.

Team Telcom, Inc. of East Lansing conducted the survey, said Dan Ream, its CEO. Ream said he was "not at liberty to say" who hired his firm.

Team Telcom specializes in political campaigns and is connected to a Lansing-based lobbying and political consulting firm. Team Telcom also was hired to do pre-election polling in July by the pro-deck group Citizens for Traverse City.

When asked if developer Michael Uzelac of Federated Properties commissioned the poll, Ream replied after a pause: "I can't answer that question."

Ream said Citizens for Traverse City didn't hire them for the latest poll, but when asked to rule out Uzelac, Ream refused to answer the question.

Ream said the person who hired them crafted the survey language and "we ran with it."

Uzelac, contacted at his Traverse City residence on Friday, declined to talk about the poll or Federated's plans for its properties on West Front Street.

Former city commissioner Ann Rogers was among voters surveyed this week and described it as "very odd."

"None of the answers really applied," she said. "You ended up arguing with the surveyor."

Rogers said voters she talked to opposed the project from the start and weren't swayed by media reports or information from project supporters.

"I think a lot of people made up their minds before a lot of this came out," she said. "There were questions about the size, questions about the (developer's) contract from the beginning."

"They're putting the onus on the Record-Eagle," Rogers said. "They're flapping around, trying to find someone to blame."

City commissioner Deni Scrudato, the commission's lone critic of the Federated project, speculated the survey was linked to talk of a publicly paid, post-election poll of city voters through the Downtown Development Authority board. The item was pulled from the DDA's agenda at a meeting last month at the recommendation of city manager Richard Lewis.

"If I were the DDA, I would be a little unhappy that (developers) wanted (the city) to do their survey work," Scrudato said. "They didn't need the DDA's (funds), obviously."

Both Lewis and DDA executive director Bryan Crough said neither the city nor the DDA is involved in the survey and they were unaware of it until pollsters called their homes.

Lewis said he has a very short list of who might have commissioned the poll, but declined to speculate.

Crough's list had just one name.

"I assume its being done by Federated Properties so they know what their alternatives are," Crough said.

Lewis said he would be interested to see the survey results, "but I'm not going to go out and ask for it."

Scrudato said it's clear residents opposed the project for a variety of reasons, She said the city should move on to other issues following months of contentious debate over the Federated plan. The reaction from project supporters in the wake of the lopsided election defeat "just indicates to me how out of touch they are with the average Traverse City citizen," she said.

"They act like 70 percent of the people voted no because they were misinformed. I don't buy that," she said.

See related stories:

• DDA terminates contract - August 19, 2006
• DDA to study deck 'no' vote - August 17, 2006
• Time line: West Front Street public parking deck project - August 6, 2006