Thoughts on the Chamber’s Survey
Do the math, don’t let the Chamber spin their data…
East is the wrong direction
Letter to the editor
appearing June 3, 2006
Something was bothering me when I read the April 8 & 9 Daily News article “Survey: Businesses favor controlled growth.” The article stated that “the largest number of respondents (25 percent) said they favor expansion to the east of town.” Well, if you assign 25 percent to each of the other compass directions then, well, you can do the math. So I looked at the Moscow Chamber of Commerce survey. Sure enough, in Question 6, East has 25 percent but there’s seven answers. One answer, “No further development” has 0 percent. But, the answer “Develop ag-industrial areas between downtown and university” has 8 percent and the answer “Concentrate more development in existing retail centers” has 14 percent. When added to the answer west, these answers favor mostly west, for a whopping total of 40 percent. Add the answers north and south to west and 75 percent of the businesses surveyed didn’t choose east. This is from the horse’s mouth.
Now, the Moscow Chamber of Commerce should follow its members wishes and agree with No Super Wal-Mart that east was the wrong direction to “support more development or expand existing retail centers in and around Moscow.”
Steve Streets, Moscow