DIDSBURY – A local resident who submitted more than 700 responses to a recent Town of Didsbury recreation and culture survey says he regrets his actions.
In reviewing the results of the Recreation & Culture survey, town staff determined that the same three IP (internet protocol) addresses were used to submit 766 responses.
Although the 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 only one response per IP address was permitted, said town CAO Harold Northcott.
Resident Kevin Bentley sent a letter to the Town of Didsbury on May 16 taking responsibility for submitting 766 responses to the survey, which ran from March 18 to April 19.
The Bentley letter was made public and accepted as information by council on June 11.
“I am writing today to confirm I, and only I, am responsible for the submission of additional outlying plan survey results beyond my own,” Bentley said in the letter.
“I take full and complete ownership of my actions. For this, I offer council and Nicole Aasen (the town’s manager of community services) a sincere apology for the angst my actions caused.
“I ought not to have submitted any survey responses 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.”
During the June 11 council meeting, councillors passed a motion authorizing administration to issue a press release regarding the matter.
The release stated that Mayor Rhonda Hunter and town councillors are expressing “frustration on the intentional effort of Bentley to invalidate the survey and compromise community engagement opportunities for Didsbury residents.”
The release quotes Hunter as saying, in part: “This self-professed manipulation of the survey created hours and hours of work for town personnel, thousands of dollars in wages for researching and sorting out invalid and valid response, and we cannot, at this point, even estimate the unknown future costs that the town will have to absorb to undertake any future community surveys.
“Council is very disappointed in this action that has been taken to undermine the efforts of the over 400 residents who completed this survey in the spirit of positive community participation.”
CAO Northcott is also quoted in the release, saying, in part: “If staff hadn’t discovered this manipulation, the survey would have had a different outcome. Community engagement and input is a large focus of this council, and Mr. Bentley attempted to take away from the residents of Didsbury.”
In a Gazette interview following the issuance of the town press release, Bentley was asked why he made the more than 700 submissions. He said that he “made an error in judgment in terms of a better or alternative way of ensuring community input into the decision making process.”
Bentley said he came forward to admit his actions after councillors and staff members started wrongly blaming other town residents of being responsible.
“They were starting to accuse other residents,” Bentley said. “I strongly emphasize this, very strongly, I would stand up in a court of law and say they were falsely accusing individuals who they seem to have a particular hate on in this community. And I wanted to make sure that didn’t go any further.
“The individuals that they were accusing in no way, shape or form had anything to do with it.”
Asked if the people who were approaching other individuals were Town of Didsbury councillors and staff, he said, “both."
Mayor Hunter and CAO Northcott both said they are not aware of any staff member or councillor accusing anyone of sending the 766 responses.
Asked if he needed to hack into the survey program to send his 766 responses, Bentley said, “Absolutely not.”
Nicole Aasen is the manager of community services for the Town of Didsbury.
“In regards to the costs associated with the survey breach, staff time to filter through all the compromised responses, remove them, and provide all research and reporting data to council totalled $2,093,” Aasen said.
“Printing costs to make a copy of each duplicate response totaled $286.01. Total additional costs to the Town as a result of this issue equals $2,379.01.
“Other costs have included council and the CAO’s time in dealing with this matter as well as future costs of utilizing a different survey tool, which is unknown at this time.”
The final survey results from 420 valid responses have been forwarded to council as information for use in future budgeting and planning decisions, says Northcott.
For his part, Bentley says he plans to remain active in the community.
“Life is such that along the road you make mistakes and you learn from them,” said Bentley. “You have to look at the bigger body of any individuals life work and contribution to society.
“I don’t in any way want to minimize that I made a mistake, but I take ownership of it. Based on my community activism, I should have known better. It’s a learning experience.”
