Measure P: Focus Groups

I had an experience with a Measure P focus group at the end of September. We met at the Fess Parker hotel and resort in Santa Barbara, and they paid everyone $125 for over an hour to watch No on P commercials. Two groups of about 50 people were there, so they were paying us approximately $10,000 to watch these commercials and tell them what we thought.

Many people in the focus group had questions what this measure was and why they were watching all these No on P ads and none for Yes on P. We wanted to know in more detail what this measure was. We wanted to know if they were going to be fracking in Santa Barbara County.

The lady in charge said she couldn’t tell us; she was only hired by a company to run the group. When I asked again if fracking would happen in the county, one man in the group said they were only going to do fracking in North Dakota. I was going to vote “no,” but once I researched this and found out they will frack in Santa Barbara County, I changed my mind to vote “yes” on P.

I just wanted to share my experience. If they did that to us in the focus group, how much more they will try to confuse and fool the whole county? I am voting “yes” on P.