A

legitimate survey, or a political manipulation?

In the afternoon of May 4, 2016, I received a phone call on my cellular phone, from
someone asking for me by name.
The question asked by the lady on the phone was whether I knew anything about
density bonus, and the Encinitas Housing Element.
I said yes, and she asked whether I would respond to a survey.
I agreed.
The survey started well enough, ascertaining that I knew about the Housing
Element, and about the density bonus law, and about the fact that Encinitas was
struggling with these issues.
Then followed a sequence of perhaps 5 to10 questions such as:
What are the three most important issues/questions/considerations in the
following list?
Thereafter followed a sequence of concatenated items, read in a rapid staccato with
hardly any breathing pauses: 1. Blah blah blah, 2. Blah blah blah 3. Blah blah blah
bah, 4...etc.
Each blah blah blah was a lengthy, complex sentence, that would take 5 to 10
seconds to read. The concatenation was such that it was not possible, without very
careful attention, to discern when the reading went on from one item to the next.
The whole thing would last well over a minute, and after as many as 15 items, the
question was Which are your top three?
The first time, I had her repeat more slowly, but even then I could not memorize the
12 items. Eventually she tried to be helpful and suggested some answers I could
pick. (Somewhat biased, I felt, but who was I to argue without going through the
whole list anew?)
But I agreed, because I could not see going through it again, and I started becoming
curious about where this survey was going.
After a few such questions, I asked her whether the survey had been commissioned
by the City. I said that if this were the case, I would lodge a complaint. She did not
answer. Later I opined that such a survey was fraudulent, as it was impossible to
give any cogent answer.
After a few more questions, I started answering either randomly or by selecting
items I could recall, even though they were not necessarily representative of my

opinions. I started developing the view that this survey was so twisted, and the
formulation so biased, that any results would be invalid.
By that time, I had decided that this survey could not possibly have been
commissioned by the City, in spite of its long history of ill-conceived and poorly
conducted surveys. I decided instead that this was a survey conducted by a PAC for
a candidate in the coming elections.
This was confirmed in my mind when a series of questions were formulated as long
rants of typical propaganda that the City of Encinitas was the only city in the county
with no Housing Element; that the City was going to be sued; that the State would
take over the Housing planningetc. etc.
The questions started being remarkably biased, or impossible to answer logically
of the type When did you stop beating your wife? By then I was convinced that the
survey had been commissioned by the BIA, or some developer, or a PAC. In my
frustration and anger, I started answering in the most obnoxious way I could think:
We dont need more housing. There is no traffic problem. Density bonus is a
fraud (which I happen to think is true). And so on and so forth.
After about 20 minutes of this silly game, came the clincher. Several questions
formulated in the following format:
Henry says: ..some long, long sentence about great Prop A is. But Tom says:
some long sentence about how deleterious prop A is.
Question: Do you agree with Henry or with Tom? Do you just agree or
agree strongly?
Dr. Smith says: ..some long, long propaganda story about the need to relax prop
A to allow more housing, mixed use and more housing for older citizens. But Dr
Jones says: .some long, long equally irritating story about protecting Encinitas the
way it has been and should always be?
Question: Do you agree with Dr. Smith or with Dr. Jones? Do you just agree
or agree strongly?
Several more along those lines, including, again and again, the propaganda about the
City being sued by the building industry and the State taking over. (It got to be
pretty old after a while and I complained that the question had already been asked
and answered.)
You might imagine how I responded. When asked why I made that choice, I said
repeatedly that I thought the survey was a fraud, and that governed my choice.
Please, please, please, do not take this survey seriously. Make fun of it if you are
willing to suffer through the pain of it. It is a fraud, and will be used by the funding
party (whether building industry, political campaign, or PAC) to derail ongoing

discussions about the Housing Element. I do not believe that this is a legitimate
survey commissioned by the City. (If is was, God forbid, then the City should
immediately cancel the contract.)
By the way, I tried to call back the number from which I had been called, and guess
what? Surprise, surprise! It had been disconnected! This is of course typical of such
scams.

Bernard Minster