B ack in Novermber, the 40-Year Plan promised it would reveal the results of Mayor Eddie Perez's $20,000 telephone survey of 600 voters in January and November 2005.

Well, we have the entire 21-page power-point slide presentation and its three-page executive summary in our hot little hands, and - drumroll, please - the major surprise discovered by a private polling firm is that 50 percent of Hartfordites rate their garbage collection services as very good.

If we factor in the 4.4 percent margin of error, almost 55 percent may think Hartford can toss the trash.

Lo, I am faint of heart!

The image may be that waste disposal is poor, according to mayoral aide Susan McMullen.

"I think that probably most people have a perception that that is what we get most complaints about, 'Nobody picked up my trash' or 'They forgot to pick up my recyclables,'" McMullen said. "But trash collection was right up there with libraries as the goals to aim for with other departments."

City library services score very highly among citizens. Rating very low were crime and street conditions. Shocking that the previous phone survey two years ago revealed the same thing. Or we could just assume that three double-murders in three weeks and the massive mother of all potholes on Farmington Avenue in front of the Aetna indicate the same.

McMullen defends the survey, which shows that in November, 52 percent of residents feel that the city is moving in the right direction (a seven percent jump from January). About 25 percent state the city is moving in the wrong direction; 23 percent don't know. Those 23 percent, if pressed, would probably relate right and wrong in proportional numbers, McMullen said.

"It is looking at trends, and also being able to have good data rather than anecdotal data," she said.

Let's forget that anecdotal data gets prescription medicines pulled from the shelves.

I want that $20,000 spent on a classroom aide instead. Here's page seven: "Do you believe homeownership in Hartford has increased in the past year?" Both in January and November, 61 percent of residents said "Yes." The analysis: "Since the result is stable is will take a major public event to change these numbers in either direction."

Thanks, Sherlock, and next time rewrite the question so it doesn't substitute belief for knowledge where hard facts are available.

This survey is about image management, McMullen admitted. Image equals economic development.

"I think the way residents feel about city services has an impact on home ownership," she said. "The general perception of city services needs to be at a good high level in order to improve home ownership and attract new business and improve the ability to keep businesses here."

The executive summary blames the media for creating negative perceptions and suggests that the Mayor needs to communicate his goals better.

The Mayor's solution: invest public resources in building a stronger city website, create a 311 phone information system and construct a wireless internet network from scratch in Hartford.

With apologies to a few, is anyone on the Mayor's 25-person strong staff thinking? This same survey states that only one in four Hartfordites have home internet access. I'll add in the accepted notion that 70 percent of Hartfordites only possess level three literacy skills (which means I, too, am missing most Hartfordites, but more on that in the future).

McMullen acknowledged that those people must utilize 311, which she said she hopes will operate by April 1. "If we get to the point where Hartford is a wireless city, and people get excited, it will only help push literacy," McMullen reasoned. "People want internet access. If we make it a commonly available service and people see everyone else is doing it, the positive consequenses of that are pretty significant."

And MassMutual will hire Hartford as its internet service provider. As a friend noted, "I wouldn't trust my business internet needs to the city." I love the concept of low-cost, community ISPs; but as priorities for Hartford go, publicly-financed wi-fi ranks right before subsidized lap dances and right after image management.

Hartford's priority list should read: crime prevention, education, mass transit, poverty-reduction, energy-efficiency and self-sufficiency.

1/9/06

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"Hartford's priority list should read: crime prevention, education, mass transit, poverty-reduction, energy-efficiency and economic self-sufficiency."