Voters Split On Charter, Poll Shows Results: 44% Back Consolidation

Frustrated by speculation that Spokane city-county consolidation doesn’t stand much chance of passing, proponents on Tuesday released a month-old survey showing voters split on the issue.

The survey, commissioned by the campaign group We The People, showed 44 percent of 600 registered voters favored consolidation while 43 percent opposed it. Thirteen percent were undecided.

“The unified charter has a good chance (of passing) if supporters mount an effective campaign,” the surveying company, Moore Information Inc., wrote in a summary.

Officials at the Portland-based firm, which does surveys for a variety of issues and candidates, did not return phone messages Tuesday. The $17,100 survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent, according to the summary.

The survey showed that consolidation suffered from obscurity.

Nearly half the respondents said they were unfamiliar with the proposal. They were less likely to support consolidation than the 51 percent who said they knew about the idea.

That was before We The People started advertising and putting up campaign signs. Campaign leaders said they plan another survey late this month to see whether their message is getting through.

Bill First, leader of the anti-consolidation group, We The Taxpayers, said the poll results - particularly the large number who said they were undecided - are “dismal” for charter boosters.

“The proponents of the charter have expended almost three years of energy, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of both public and private money to inform about the charter,” he said, referring to the 1992 campaign to elect freeholders who spent three years writing the charter.

“There was no organized opposition” until lately, he said..

Statistically, the odds are against consolidation passing.

Voters rejected the proposal in eight of nine communities where it was proposed during the 1980s. Voters most often say yes after rejecting consolidation two or three times, or when local government is mired in a crisis or scandal.

We The People did not release responses to many survey questions, such as whether people are satisfied with city and county governments, and who they named as political leaders.

After gauging respondents’ initial attitude, pollsters read 14 positive statements about consolidation, then asked again whether they’d support the proposal.

This time, 56 percent said yes and 30 percent said no, with the rest undecided.

, DataTimes MEMO: If voters approve the charter they are choosing a new form of government to replace Spokane’s City Council and county commission. All city and county departments would merge. The government would have 13 council members elected to represent districts of about 30,000 people. Voters countywide would elect an executive with authority similar to a state governor or strong mayor. The 10 small towns would remain independent. The charter does not set the government’s budget or its employee roster. Those and other policy issues can only be addressed by the officials voters would elect to run the government.