The News-Gazette pointed out a recent push poll with extremely leading language to counter Democratic claims that selling the nursing home isn't popular in their County Board districts:
Tom Kacich: Privately commissioned poll claims tide turning against nursing home
Democrats on the Champaign County Board have been saying for months that they felt justified in opposing the sale of the county nursing home because their constituents in the county's urban core opposed it in a ballot question last April.
But County Clerk Gordy Hulten says public opinion has shifted, and he commissioned a poll — using his own campaign funds — to prove it.
First, some background: Last April's consolidated election featured this advisory question countywide: "Shall the Champaign County Board be authorized to sell or dispose of the Champaign County Nursing Home?"
The issue passed overwhelmingly in areas outside of Champaign-Urbana — those represented exclusively be Republicans — about 67 percent to 33 percent.
But in Champaign and Urbana — those districts represented by Democrats — the question lost by a big majority, particularly in Urbana where it went down, 69 percent to 31 percent.
That was April, though, and public opinion has moved over the last seven months as the nursing home's finances have worsened and there have been health and safety issues at the county-owned institution.
In a telephone poll done only within the six county board districts represented by Democrats (out of 11 districts), about 53 percent said they would support the sale of the nursing home in order to solve the county's financial problems, while 29 percent opposed the sale. About 18 percent said they were undecided.
The single polling question asked was: "As you may know from published reports, the Champaign County Nursing Home is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, and two residents died this year due to alleged negligence. To remedy the situation, the county board must now decide between cutting services — such as laying off police officers and eliminating some early voting locations — or selling the home to a privately funded company prepared to provide better care. We'd like to know whether you support or oppose the sale of the Champaign County Nursing Home in an effort to solve the problems?"
The Republican County Executive candidate and current County Clerk's friend is mentioned in the article to be behind the pretty blatant push poll, and he also was running facebook advertisements implying cuts to vital services that haven't even been proposed (as this previous article mentions, the budget revenue or cuts to fund the Nursing Home are still to be decided):
County board Democrats, who last month voted against putting the money-losing nursing home up for sale, have to find an estimated $1.4 million of budget cuts or new revenue to balance the county's spending plan for the year beginning Jan. 1.
Fortado's goal, she said, is to "make sure the nursing home stays public, but I also want to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure that the cuts don't hurt personnel.
"There are no easy answers. When the whole board comes together (at a committee of the whole meeting) is when we're going to have those conversations. But we haven't found the one silver bullet."
Which really makes this facebook ad sound both premature and blatantly trying to make it sound like these decisions have already been made and scaring people into thinking it'll suppress the vote and take police (as opposed to other staff changes) off the street:
Democratic County Board Member Kyle Patterson shared this quick analysis:
I put together a brief analysis of this push-poll, explaining how it is subjective and not objective and uses manipulative language to get a desired response.
LANGUAGE OF PUSH-POLL:
"As you may know from published reports, the Champaign County Nursing Home is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, and two residents died this year due to alleged negligence. To remedy the situation, the county board must now decide between cutting services — such as laying off police officers and eliminating some early voting locations — or selling the home to a privately funded company prepared to provide better care. We'd like to know whether you support or oppose the sale of the Champaign County Nursing Home in an effort to solve the problems?"
MY ANALYSIS:
“The Champaign County Nursing Home is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.”
Extremely questionable facts and does not specify the length of months, nor is it true that this is even a fact for all of 2017. Also, it delves into this topic without explaining why the shortfalls have occurred, such as state issues.
“To remedy the situation, the county board must now decide between cutting services.”
False conclusions on unrealistically limited options
“Such as laying off police officers and eliminating some early voting locations.”
Subjective selection of alternatives and false conclusions. The county has nearly $40 million in discretionary spending and this suggests those are some of the only options for cuts, which is grossly inaccurate.
“Selling the home to a privately funded company prepared to provide better care.”
False suggestion that a private home provides better care.
“…in an effort to solve the problems?"
Does not specify what the problems are and it establishes an opinion as fact that selling the nursing home will solve those problems
Now whether you're for selling the Nursing Home or against it, the budget issues will certainly involve some hard budget choices. And one of the things I'm still not entirely clear on beyond the 6 month budget (that assumes the Nursing Home will be sold) versus the proposed 12 month budget (that doesn't make that fairly big assumption on selling the Nursing Home) is: what will be the real effects of the County Executive?
If you look at the tentative budget (available here) the office and its inevitable staff aren't in the organizational charts yet. The County Administrator's office and staff doesn't appear to be being replaced by or absorbed by the County Executive's office... or maybe that's to be determined? The budget basically reads like 2018's plan is to plan for a plan for how the County Executive will work. Meanwhile the current County Administrator is leaving:
In his last month as county administrator (he was hired last week to be village administrator in Rantoul), Rick Snider has to put together a new county budget that will include up to $1.3 million in budget cuts or revenue increases to balance the budget. That's because the county board voted to stop a proposed sale of the nursing home and to keep it under county ownership for another year.
Snider said Tuesday that it going to be difficult to do without cutting jobs.
"I don't see any way without affecting personnel that we can do it," he said.
"I think there's an opportunity for us to defer some capital expenditures, but there's not a lot of that in the budget anyway. There's really nowhere left to cut."
Where the rubber hits the road? We may find out in the upcoming Committee of the Whole County Board meeting this Tuesday, which you can live stream or Attend a Meeting!
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