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01/26/2022 07:00 AM

Confusing and Conflating


In his recent letter (“Need to Rethink,” Jan. 13), Bill Kochis challenged the use of the phrase “statistically significant survey” regarding the Academy community center project, but he did so erroneously by confusing and conflating the results of two completely different town surveys.

The Great Blue Survey, commissioned by the town in November/December 2018, using quantitative research methodology, systematically surveyed 403 telephone respondents, plus allowed 2,000 online responses. This was indeed a “statistically significant survey,” which indicated that 59 percent of respondents favored a community center in the Academy building over six other options. The official report of this survey can be found at www.madisonct.org/documentcenter/view/2141.

In a totally separate survey in March 2019, the Ad Hoc Academy Community Center Design Committee (ACCD) offered an online questionnaire to assess the public’s preferences for use of space in a community center in the Academy building. It was to this survey that 779 responses were received. The findings of this survey can be found on pages 9 to 12 of the ACCD’s “FINAL REPORT, APRIL 8, 2019” available at www.madisonct.org/academyschool. Nowhere in this report was the phrase “statistically significant survey” used.

If voters are to weigh in on the merits of the Academy project at the Feb. 15 referendum, it will be important for them to do so based on accurate information from official town sources, not based on hearsay and misinformation. Does The Source ever fact check the content of letters?

Bill Stableford

Madison

Bill Stableford serves on the First Selectwoman’s Academy Working Group.

Editor’s note: The Source does fact-check letters, though clearly not infallibly so.