DIDSBURY – The Town of Didsbury will be invoicing resident Kevin Bentley $2,379.01 for the administrative costs associated with the generation of hundreds of duplicate responses to the recent Recreation and Culture survey.
Council passed a motion at the July 9 council meeting authorizing the billing.
Mayor Rhonda Hunter said the town decided to invoice Bentley after a consideration of options.
“Council considered a variety of responses-actions to address the information that a resident had intentionally attempted to skew the results of an important community survey,” said Hunter.
“A clear message from residents was to recover the costs from Mr Bentley, and council wanted to send a message that staff wages and other costs of this would not be paid for by taxpayers.
“If the deception had not been discovered, Didsbury's Recreation and Culture Master Plan would have been altered significantly in a direction created by one person.”
Although the March 18 - April 16 survey was originally set up to not allow the same IP address to complete the survey more than once, it was later determined that it was possible to regenerate the survey on the same device, allowing repeated responses.
The survey itself stipulated that one response per IP address was permitted, said town CAO Harold Northcott.
In reviewing the results of the survey, town staff determined that the same three IP (internet protocol) addresses were used to submit 766 responses.
Bentley sent a letter to the Town of Didsbury on May 16 taking responsibility for submitting 766 responses to the survey. The letter was made public June 11.
Bentley’s letter reads as follows: “I am writing today to confirm I, and only I, am responsible for the submission of additional outlying plan survey results beyond my own. I take full and complete ownership of my actions. For this, I offer council and (a staff member) a sincere apology for the angst my actions caused. I ought not to have submitted any survey results other than my own. It was a mistake and error in judgment. I am better than this. I will use this experience as a lesson on how to be a better member of the community. I am truly sorry.”
After receiving Bentley’s letter, the town issued a statement that read, in part: “Council is very disappointed in this action that has been taken to undermine the efforts of over 400 residents who completed this survey in spirit of positive community participation.”
In response to council’s decision to invoice him, Bentley said, “The town has chosen me as the scapegoat to cover for its inability to create, administer and analyze a survey in accordance with well documented and accepted survey principles, guidelines and practices.”
Asked if the decision to invoice Bentley is aimed at deterring others from taking similar action in the future, Mayor Hunter provided the following statement:
“If people are intent on spending the time to engage in the action of manipulating a survey, I doubt that getting a bill for such public mischief is on their minds at all. It is likely more accurate that they hope not to be caught and that their actions will go unnoticed. If the decision does deter such future actions, that would be a positive outcome to council's decision.”
For more, see Bentley’s letter to the editor in this week’s Gazette.
