An advocacy telephone poll promoting Brooklyn’s biggest potential
development project collided with the project’s fiercest opponent
while canvassing the borough’s telephone lines this week.
Patti Hagan, an outspoken opponent of developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic
Yards plan, said she received a phone call on Sunday at 6:30 pm from a
pollster asking about her political inclinations and thoughts on the project
and its supporters.
[Hagan taped the Hagan, who has had the same phone number at her St. Mark’s Avenue “He started laughing at a certain point,” she said, after she Forest City Ratner Companies, when asked if they commissioned Pacific “We don’t discuss our internal research,” said spokesman Pacific Crest Research was not listed in the area code or city provided Hagan, who has spoken out against Atlantic Yards since she first heard “Supporters of this project say [it] will bring great benefit to “The new arena would serve as the centerpiece of a revitalized Brooklyn. On March 4, city and state officials signed an agreement with each promising Since its inception last year, the Atlantic Yards project has been harshly Additionally, opponents including Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn In this week’s poll, after the introductory information, Hagan was “From the way the whole thing is structured it’s obvious they This format, according to the book, “The Polling and The Public,” “The intent is to disseminate campaign propaganda under the guise The National Council on Public Polls warns that such push polls are used “These efforts are not polls, but political manipulation trying to “‘Push polls’ are unethical and have been condemned by The emergence of push polls came to national political consciousness during Though the survey started and ended with questions regarding Hagan’s Sandwiched between questions gauging her opinion from “very favorable” Daughtry, as outspoken in favor of the project as Hagan is against it, “I thought it was bizarre that of all the public figures you’re “He’s not running for any office that I know of,” she said. “Could it be they were trying to gauge if they had a black reverend
call; read excerpts from the transcript.]
brownstone for 26 years, gave the pollster an earful.
repeated her strong opposition following long, explanatory and leading
questions.
Crest Research to perform the study regarding their plans to build a 19,000-seat
Nets basketball arena and 17 high-rises with more than 4,500 new units
of housing and office space to Prospect Heights, declined to answer the
question.
Barry Baum.
by the pollster to Hagan, however, searches on the Internet found the
firm to be connected with political and investment research.
of Ratner’s plans for the mega-development just blocks from her home,
said several of the questions featured “leading” or inaccurate
and biased language, a key feature of “push polling.” Push polling
attempts to influence — rather than measure — public opinion
— by using questions worded in a manner intended to spread information
that is often incorrect about people and positions that run counter to
the position of the poll’s client.
Brooklyn. The project will create thousands of jobs and provide some badly
needed housing space for people from all different income levels in Brooklyn.
It will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in extra tax revenue
each year that could be used for schools and other vital services,”
the pollster read to Hagan from what she perceived to be a prepared script.
It would be a striking symbol of the borough’s re-emergence,”
said the questioner, before stating that “opponents say [it] will
cost as much as $200 million in taxpayers’ money,” using a reference
to funds publicly committed by the mayor and governor two weeks ago.
— from taxpayer funds — $100 million towards the developer’s
infrastructure and acquisition costs.
criticized by area residents and some elected officials for its reliance
on the state’s condemnation of up to 10 acres of private residential
and commercial property, which would be turned over to Ratner.
(DDDB), of which Hagan is a member, have said the project could cost taxpayers
as much as $1.3 billion. DDDB and Hagan’s own group, the Prospect
Heights Action Coalition, as well as local Councilwoman Letitia James
and state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, believe the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority should solicit competitive bids for development rights over
the roughly 11 acres of rail yards it owns that Ratner needs for his project.
asked if she was “much more likely” to support the project,
“more likely” or felt the same about her support for the project.
are hoping to appeal to people by [making them feel] educated: ‘Supporters
say this … knowing this information, does that change your opinion?’”
Hagan said.
by Herbert Asher, is “a telemarketing technique in which telephone
calls are used to canvas potential voters, feeding them false or misleading
‘information’ about a candidate under the pretense of taking
a poll to see how this ‘information’ affects voter preferences.
of conducting a legitimate public opinion poll,” wrote Asher.
not to collect information, but to “spread rumors and even outright
lies about opponents.
hide behind the smokescreen of a public opinion survey.”
professional polling organizations,” states the council on its Web
site.
George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, when references to challenger John
McCain as a “cheat” and “liar” came to light in such
surveys.
feelings about her favored candidates for the positions of mayor, City
Council speaker, Brooklyn district attorney and public advocate in next
November’s election, what suggested to Hagan, a former reporter and
fact-checker, that the survey had to have been paid for by Ratner was
the mention of one conspicuously non-elected public figure.
to “very unfavorable” of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and District
Attorney Charles Hynes was a question about the Rev. Herbert Daughtry.
is pastor of the House of the Lord Church on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum
Hill, a few blocks from the potential arena site.
going to have an opinion of — the Rev. Herbert Daughtry? That really
tips it off,” said Hagan, who had to correct the pollster’s
mispronunciation of the minister’s name.
“He’s the only black person in that whole poll, and he has given
his allegiance 110 percent to Ratner’s project.
supporting them it helped them?” she asked rhetorically, and pointed
out, “Rev. Herbert Daughtry is not an elected official, he’s
not running for office and he lives in New Jersey.”
