Poll Highlights Perception Of ‘Financial Irregularities’ At Fairfield Hills

By John Voket

An independent poll commissioned by local business owner Matt DeAngelis showed that 50 percent of respondents believe there have been “financial irregularities concerning the Fairfield Hills project.”

The poll tallied 100 responses from among 3,089 registered voters contacted by Eastern Research, the independent research firm used for the project. According to the Eastern Research website, each poll the company generates has a margin of error of approximately ten percent, meaning any of the numbers in the poll could be ten points higher than reported, or ten points lower than reported.

Some of the poll results were featured in a display advertisement Mr DeAngelis placed in The Newtown Bee on February 2.

The public perception about financial irregularities at Fairfield Hills was highlighted in the ad, as was the assertion that 88 percent of voters surveyed disagree with First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, the Board of Selectmen, and the Fairfield Hills Authority about plans to locate a new town hall at Fairfield Hills.

That assertion was based on a poll question that asked: We have a chance to build only one new building on the Fairfield Hills Campus using the bond money we approved in 2001. What should it be? Twelve people responded that the town hall would be their first choice.

It is unclear whether Mr DeAngelis, himself, believes that there have been financial irregularities at Fairfield Hills. Attempts to ask him that question on Wednesday by phone and by email yielded an email response from Pat DeAngelis, a Middlebury resident who is Matt DeAngelis’s father. He wrote that he was the “media co-coordinator for Friends of Newtown” and would be responding for his son.

“We did not survey ourselves, that would have been fruitless,” Pat DeAngelis wrote in response to the question about his son’s stance on financial irregularities. “The individual surveys indicated what was stated in the survey results.”

An email sent by Matt DeAngelis to The Bee after last week’s publication went to press referred to a page on the insidenewtown.com website that qualifies some of the aspects of the poll.

“We came up with the questions, [Eastern Research] tweaked them a little, then went to work. We sent them the entire registered voter list for Newtown, minus people without telephone numbers listed. The total sample was in the 12,000 range,” the website reported. “We also told them that we only wanted to talk to one voter per household, so that cut the number down to 7,382. They made a total of 3,089 phone calls (some calls may have been to the same person, as some people (434 to be exact) said that this was an inconvenient time and they would be pleased to participate at some later time.)

“Anyway, 100 surveys were completed,” the statement concluded.

Those called were asked questions including:

What do you think are the three biggest challenges facing us as Newtown taxpayers?

The answers included: taxes, education, Fairfield Hills, overdevelopment, lack of a plan, traffic, recreation, and lack of space for seniors. Seven people either responded that recreation or lack of space for seniors were top challenges. According to the site, other respondents suggested other “challenges,” including: drugs in the schools, the Republicans, and a dog pound.

Question 2 asked: Do you think the Legislative Council is doing a good job? Fifty-nine of the 100 responded affirmatively. When illustrating the answer to a follow-up question on why respondents felt the council was doing a good job, the site chose to only post a single “favorite” answer: “I think they’re not doing anything and I like it that way.”

The exact same level of approval, 59 percent or 59 respondents, was counted in a question about the Board of Selectmen. In all, 58 approved of the job the Board of Education was doing, and 67 respondents approved of the Board of Finance.

Half of the 100 respondents said yes when asked: Do you think there are financial irregularities concerning the Fairfield Hills project? Once again, only one follow-up answer was illustrated: “I don’t know that there is anything illegal going on…I think it’s a matter of their incompetence and it’s not going anywhere.”

The question about building “only one new building on the Fairfield Hills Campus using the bond money we approved in 2001,” yielded 31 responses favoring a recreation center, 19 picked “a school,” 15 said “a senior center,” 14 said “a commercial building,” and 12 said “a town hall.” Nine respondents chose to not answer, or provided another answer.

Another question was posed to the 100 respondents in this way: “I’m going to read you some names and ask how you feel about them. Answer positive, neither positive nor negative, negative or don’t know.” The caller then ran the names of Matt DeAngelis, as well as several elected or appointed local officials including Mr Rosenthal, finance board Chairman John Kortze, Fairfield Hills Authority Chairman Bob Geckle, Legislative Council Chairman Will Rodgers, and school board member Paul Mangiafico.

Mr Rosenthal had 45 responding affirmatively and 31 negatively, the rest were neutral or did not know him. Mr Kortze was the next most recognized name with 16 percent responding positively, three responding negatively and 72 saying they did not know who Mr Kortze was.

Mr DeAngelis was recognized by 15 respondents in a positive way, four negatively, and the 66 did not know the name.

Mr Rodgers was viewed positively by 14 respondents, negatively by two, neutrally by 13, and 71 people did not know him.

Mr Geckle’s name elicited 11 positive responses, six negative, 18 neutral, and 65 people did not know him.

Mr Mangiafico was recognized positively by nine people, negatively by two, neutrally by 15, and 74 people were not familiar with his name.

The final question asked: “Do you think The Newtown Bee is neutral, biased toward the town government, or biased against the town government?” Sixty-five respondents believed the newspaper was neutral, 28 thought the newspaper was biased one way or the other, and seven said they “don’t know.”

Sample Size

The relatively high margin of error in the Eastern Research poll is related to the small number of respondents, according to experts from three unaffiliated polling organizations.

Robert Daves, the president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research said 100 respondents for a poll of any size is “characteristically small.”

“Unless they can ensure that the 100 represent a true sampling of the residents, it calls into question the validity of the poll,” Mr Daves said, adding that registered voters as a whole were not an ideal sample group.

“Registered voters tend to be regarded as different than an average sampling of adults in general, because they tend to represent individuals who are more educated, with higher incomes, who are more partisan,” he said. Mr Daves said his organization generally will not validate polls where there are less than 800–1,000 responses.

At the UConn Center for Survey Research and Analysis, Director Dr Samuel Best said results from 100 respondents to 3,089 calls in a community survey are “almost trivial.”

“We couldn’t even begin to do a subgroup analysis on that small a number,” Dr Best said. “There are so few cases [of respondents] and the margin for error is so sizable, it just doesn’t pass the face test. The sample size and response rate is too far below industry standards.”

Marilyn Milliken, manager of Internal Services for The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research said three percent of a return on a survey is small.

“We won’t even look at subpopulations in a sample if the number is 100 or less,” she said. “And the final number has to be truly representative of a population to be sure the respondents are compatible with the overall population.”