The results fly in the face of the council's decision to approve Dollar General to build a store in the parking lot. The question to be asked is why does the city council have such a different opinion on this subject from the constituents they are to be serving?

It is not just that the residents of Minonk differ from the council on this issue. It is the intensity of the feelings of the residents. To say that the citizens are upset with the council's decision is an understatement. About 65% of the respondents sent in comments with their vote. All of the Yes comments were printed. I could not print some of the emails received from the No votes because they would have been defamatory to certain individuals. To see the comments of the poll, click here.

Most respondents felt that the Dollar General Store should come to Minonk but would like to see it located in a spot other than the city parking lot. But some respondents were against the store even locating in Minonk because they feel that it is a junk store which will not add any benefit to the community. The reasons cited by the respondents for not wanting Dollar General to build in the city parking lot can be summarized as follows:

• The parking space is too valuable an asset to give up for a store. Minonk needs as many parking spaces as possible. Losing parking spaces is not good for other businesses.
• The store would not fit in with the rest of the downtown architecture. Many cited complaints about the cheap look of the storefront.
• People do not like the idea of giving land away to a business, especially since other businesses must buy their land from the city.
• There are plenty of empty buildings and empty lots in downtown Minonk where the store can be built.
• The parking lot has been used for community events like carnivals and parades and that would be lost if Dollar General is built in the parking lot.
• The respondents felt that the public should have some say in this decision. Some were upset that the council made this decision in closed session without any public input.

The other objection will be that the poll only records the opinions of those who are on the internet. This is true, but so what. Any poll is only a sample and I find no reason to believe that the opinions of those people who are on the internet would be markedly different from non-internet users, especially when the results of the poll are so one-sided.

Another objection is that someone could get on the internet and just keep sending reponses over and over again in an attempt to skew the poll results. I monitored the results of the poll throughout the week and the results were coming in at decent time intervals. Each day fewer votes were cast. On Saturday only 5 votes were cast and so I decided to publish the results that you now see.

Sunday noon I was unable to pull up the MinonkTalk website so that I could put the results on the internet. I went somewhere and came back about 6:00 p.m. to try to put the results on again. When I checked my email I received 46 Yes votes in a row between 3:26 p.m. and 3:55 p.m. without any comments. I immediately knew that someone was either trying to screw up the results of the poll or were trying to make the poll come out in favor of Dollar General putting their store in the parking lot. Even if these 46 Yes votes were recorded there still would have been 32 more No votes.

I had no idea who was trying to influence the Yes votes but it does disgust me that there are some individuals out there who would be so desparate and try to pull such a stunt. In any case, whoever pulled this stunt was an amateur and was not very clever in trying to hide his deceit. Any future polls will be subject to the same scrutiny and a program change will be made to prevent that from happening again.

I feel that internet polling can be a very valuable tool for the Minonk city council. It enables them to feel the pulse of the community. Let's face it. People do not intermingle like they used to. When was the last time you had some one drop over for any evening just to visit? Everyone is staying home either watching TV or surfing the internet. People will not write letters or go to city council meetings but they will respond to internet polls.

Monday night the city council will be voting on signing the contract with Dollar General. If you wish to make sure your vote is not in vain, I suggest that you show up at the city council meeting.

I hope the Minonk City Council takes the results of the Dollar General poll seriously. It beats having to call up their constituents themselves. If the job of the councilperson is to know what his constituents are thinking, the internet poll serves this purpose well because it is immediate and easy to use. Internet polling is a new and valuable tool for communities and will enable the public to be better served by the city council.