Friday, February 17, 2006

Another Famous ADE 'Poll'

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise began a new poll last Monday 13 Feb. The question is "Do you want the 121,000-square-foot Wal-Mart that has been proposed for Saranac Lake"? I think the question would have been better and more informative if the word 'Wal-Mart had been left out. Ninety percent of people in the area want a general merchandise store. One point we could agree upon is the size of the store.

One disappointing feature of this 'poll' is the comments section, or at least the way it is used. Most of the comments were reasonable and relatively civil for the first couple of days and then went downhill from there. I don't favor a Wal-Mart in Saranac Lake but I certainly don't want those who do want a Wal-Mart to move away. Also, I think it's silly to treat recent transplants to Saranac Lake poorly. Don't we want people to move to SL? I'm glad Wal-Mart will hire 300 people. I'm not happy that those people are going to be treated poorly by a corporation that can afford to be more generous to it's employees. I also honestly feel that some local businesses are going to have a very hard time surviving after Wal-Mart moves into town. I feel badly for those business owners who may have to close their businesses.

I also find it sad that good people like Linda Piro and Mark Kurtz are being disparaged. Both of them are doing what they feel is right for our community.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The ADE poll was awful. People responding to it took to name calling and worse. But the big problem with it was that it wasn't specific enough. Why ask only one question? There should have been 3 or 4 questions like a multiple choice. If there had been other questions asked, I feel the results would have been different.
All the ADE poll did was make people angry. Those "pro" people became more "pro" and those "anti" people became more "anti." The poll really didn't answer the question. And was it possible to vote more than once? I don't have an answer to that question.