The braintrust in Maine’s welfare capital just paid a consultant big money to ask taxpayers how unhappy they are.
Portland officials with full cynicism on display paid $40,000 for the poll of city residents.
The results: Half of the property owners aren’t happy with city spending. Maybe they wish the city were spending more? (LOL)
Seventy-five percent said housing is too expensive. News flash.
“I’m so glad we made the funds available to complete this work as this data will go far in helping us direct our policy work,” Mayor Mark Dion told the Portland Press Herald with a straight face.
Too bad the paper didn’t ask Dion one serious question. Not one.
How about, “Mayor, did you really need to do a poll – and a $40,000 one at that – to find out you’re spending too much?”
Politicians do polls claiming to gauge public satisfaction for one reason – to make the working stiffs think they actually give a rat’s ass.
A so-called satisfaction survey is good for absolutely nothing other than pols trying to curry favor with the proletariat ahead of the next election.
One question in the survey was kinda like a gooh-boy biscuit. In essence the question was “Are you happy with the shopping options in Portland?”
Seventy-seven percent said that, yes, they have plenty of places to go max out their poor credit cards, thank you very much.
Eighty-one percent said they like the airport. Again, an absolutely laughable, throw-away question.
All for $40,000 in money the city doesn’t have to waste on ridiculous frivolity like satisfaction polls.
The pollsters are including a “benchmarking analysis” in their “report” for city councilors to orgasm over.
If you spend $40,000 of someone else’s money you better make sure you get a “benchmarking analysis” included.
Besides being a total waste of money, the poll’s results will prove to be as useless as this morning’s Portland Press Herald.
City councilors say they will discuss the survey results during a workshop March 23.
Don’t waste any more of our time and money, thank you.
Nothing will change in socialist Portland, Maine, where sidewalk sleeping-bag detritus rules.
Perhaps rather than wasting $40,000 asking residents whether they need a closer Walmart, the mayor of Maine’s largest community should have convened an emergency summit to address the latest student test scores showing roughly half of the white seventh-graders in his city can’t do basic math.



