Letters to the Editor: The racism of Redondo Beach’s anti-growth political leadership
I am always a bit suspicious when a local newspaper devotes a headline to something called a “survey”. This is because surveys are designed to gather unverifiable information to push a particular political agenda. These surveys are often not conducted by professional pollsters or with strict question design criteria, and often collect data from a very limited group of participants, often people over 50.
But surveys are often conducted to determine political preferences and support from a very small number of people, often people over 50. When these surveys are conducted by non-professionals, the findings are often unreliable, but the results are always based on a very small number of participants. This is not to say that the results of these surveys are meaningless. But they are just as unreliable as anything else that is collected in surveys.
Just to set the record straight, in the May 28, 2014 letter, I correctly pointed out that the Redondo Beach Board of Realtors had not, in fact, commissioned a survey to determine their residents’ sentiment on the real estate tax question.
I also pointed out that my neighbor David Ketchum, who owns two houses in Redondo Beach, did. He said he had a survey mailed to his neighbors, with the results included in his article.
The May 28, 2014 letter and the article published June 2nd, 2014 in the Redondo Beach Press-Telegram by David Ketchum accurately reflected my comments, including the fact that I had not received a survey from Redondo Beach residents. A recent article in the New York Times noted that most real estate agents contacted by the Los Angeles Times in the past two years cited “social science” findings in their response to a land use question in the Times poll, and that most of these agents were not paid for their work.
David Ketchum’
