Index of University Press Releases

Oct. 25, 2007

DWU, city near agreement on events center survey
Seth Tupper • The Daily Republic

The Mitchell City Council reached tentative consensus Wednesday evening on a plan to hire Dakota Wesleyan University to conduct an events center survey.

Dave Mitchell, a DWU professor of business administration and economics, and Don Simmons, a DWU associate professor and director of the McGovern Center for Leadership and Public Service, presented a “pre-proposal” to the council. They proposed a fee of $3,000, which is less than the estimates the council received from professional polling firms.

The survey would be designed during the next two months, conducted in January and reported in February. It would include 400 registered voters in the city, who would be asked 15 to 20 questions during a five-minute phone interview.

Though a few council members were hesitant about the need for a survey, Mitchell said it’s a necessity if the council wants to find “any basis out there for some kind of proposal that would get sufficient support.” On Sept. 18, local voters rejected a property tax increase that would have helped fund the construction of a $25 million events center.

“I heard a lot of speculation afterward about why people voted the way they voted,” Mitchell said. “My reaction is, whoever’s making the comments doesn’t know. They know what the 10 or 12 friends they talked to know, but they have no idea why most people voted the way they voted. And my assumption would be, that’s what you want to find out.”

The council did not take a vote Wednesday, but Council President Ken Tracy said there was “unofficial agreement” on hiring DWU to conduct the survey. He said an ordinance to appropriate the $3,000 fee — payable to the McGovern Center — could be drafted for the council’s next regular meeting Nov. 5.

Mitchell and Simmons invited council members and interested city residents to e-mail them during the next two weeks with ideas about what they hope to learn from the survey, and questions they want asked. The two men will compile the ideas and begin drafting the outline of a survey, which they will take to the council and members of the public for feedback.

“It’s a process of starting with an idea and refining it to the point where all the players involved concur that this is a reasonable way to get the information,” Mitchell said.