HomeMy WebLinkAbout050425 email - Pool Survey Is Not RepresentativeALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Greetings Commissioners
County Commissiioners should not rely on the JAC pool survey as a basis for committing millions of dollars for a pool.
Here’s why: It is impossible to say with any confidence that the survey sample was representative of the population as a whole.
That’s because the sampling was not random. Even though responses were widely solicited, Individuals decided on their own whether or not to respond to the survey.
There is an unknown but distinct possibility that respondents who are in favor of a pool are over-represented in the sample.
Some of the tabulations suggest that is the case. For example, 51.7% of the respondents said they used an aquatic facility in the past two years. While it may be true for the sample,
it is hard to imagine it to be true for the population as a whole.
Similarly, 53% of the respondents said they would use an aquatic facility frequently – 33% said several times a month and 20% said more than once a week. Again it is hard to imagine
that half the population of the county would use the pool that frequently.
Even then, what people say they will do and what they actually do are two entirely different things. While not exactly the same, statistics show that approximately 67% of gym memberships
go completely unused. People said they would use a gym, but didn’t.
So there really is no way to assert with any degree of statistical confidence that the survey is either representative of the population as a whole or predictive of actual usage.
Using this data is extremely risky. Actual pool usage is likely to be much different from what is suggested by this survey.
With nearly $40 million on the line, the Commission should have better data than the JAC survey.
David Neuenschwander
142 Old Lindsay Hill Rd.
Quilcene, WA 98376
360.765.3151