QUOTE (Shirley U Geste @ Nov 7 2008, 10:27 PM)
Go out to Park City, Downtown Lancaster and some local pubs and ask 500 to 1000 people what they knew about home rule. Polls were done and a large percentage claimed they new very little. Despite the fact that public meetings were held. Websites contained complete infomation of those meetings and the actual charter. Weeks of newspaper articles. Were they magically informed the last week or two? Of course not. They heard the magic words bigger government and higher taxes and made their decision.
The burden was on the GSC and the Chamber to educate folks as to why this urgent, radical change was needed. You spent all of the money you raised to do radio and tv. You were advertising - when you should have been educating.
The newspapers, two of which were very pro home rule, had editorials and columns trying to make your case while slamming the other side.
Your team took the voters for granted - your team considered the voters to be 'lemmings' only you expected them to follow your pied piper tune of more local control. You underestimated them.
We understood charter proposal all too well
Sam Jones Lancaster
Letters to the Editor Editor, New Era:
Having studied the home-rule plan, at least some of us voted against it not because we did not understand its provisions but because we, in fact, did!
So, it's insulting that its defeat is blamed on the ignorance of the voters instead of on the problems of the proposal.
Trust me, we'll remember this the next time the Chamber of Commerce and the Realtors try to foist this kind of thing on us.
