Village officials have now publicly admitted that they are dismissing the official Downtown Resident Survey results? Why would they do this? 80% of resident respondents say they are satisfied with downtown as it is. The response rate of the survey, with 9.5% of adults in Clarendon Hills taking time to fill out the survey, are statistically solid.(see details below.)
The board's most recent actions are not at all consistent with the results of the survey. Why would our leaders ignore opinions of their own neighbors on the official $80,000 survey and plan a plaza that hardly anyone wants?
https://patch.com/illinois/hinsdale/clarendon-hills-calls-misleading-patch-analysis-survey-results
Statistical Facts on the survey response rate:
Question 1: Is the 560-person survey response rate statistically meaningful for a population of 5,759 adults?
Answer 1: The overall survey (560 responses): this is statistically solid. With 560 respondents out of 5,759 adults, you have a margin of error of ±3.9% at the standard 95% confidence level. That means if the survey found, say, 60% of residents want X, you can be confident the true answer is somewhere between 56.1% and 63.9%. The village can't credibly dismiss the survey results as unrepresentative.
Question 2: Is the 134-person plaza comment rate statistically meaningful relative to the full adult population?
answer 2: The 134 plaza comments: Here's the nuance. As a standalone sample meant to represent all 5,759 adults, 134 people falls below the threshold for tight precision — the margin of error is a wider ±8.4%. However, this doesn't mean the comments are meaningless. It means you should argue they are directionally significant, not that you can project them precisely onto the whole population. The framing matters: these are allthe residents who voluntarily chose to comment on the plaza — that's a self-selected, highly motivated group whose views are worth taking seriously.
**Question 3: Is the 112 vs. 22 split (against vs. for) statistically significant — i.e., is the opposition clearly dominant, or could it be random noise?**Here's what those numbers mean in plain English:
Answer 3: The 112 vs. 22 split: This is your strongest number. The 83.6% opposition rate among commenters is statistically overwhelming. Even if you assume some measurement error and look at the worst-case end of the confidence interval, opposition is still at least 77%. The p-value (the probability this result happened by random chance if opinion were truly split 50/50) is less than 0.001 — essentially zero. You could say in a public meeting: "The opposition to the plaza among commenters is statistically significant at the 99.9% confidence level."
Summary: our resident Village board should be making decisions based on this valid data gathered from residents. This is data they cannot ignore. We are their neighbors and the survey results speak for themselves. The first downtown project should NOT be a $1,160,000 plaza in downtown Clarendon Hills. This expensive plaza decision is directly in conflict with the data.
We urge this board to reconsider this completely unsupported project, which will only block our safe and proven passage into, through and around our downtown. This flat Bollard-filled Boondoggle 'plaza' in place of our normal road has no measured level of support, but the complete rejection of this project is very evident in the official survey results.
Plan to Attend next Village Board Meeting
Monday, March 18 at 6:30pm
Clarendon Hills Village Hall
Ask them why they are ignoring the data?