Mysterious callers poll residents

Pollsters ask about growth, political and other issues.A mysterious caller has been phoning Newport Beach residents and asking pointed questions -- about city issues.

In the last week or so, a number of residents -- it’s unclear how many -- have received phone calls and have been asked to take a poll, but no one is sure what it’s for. The questions run the gamut of development and political issues.

Residents who got the calls said some questions were about various kinds of development in different parts of the city -- Fashion Island and the airport area, for example -- as well as their opinion of the city’s general plan and if they agree with growth-control measures proposed by the Greenlight Committee, a slow-growth residents group.

They even asked what people think of City Council members and the city manager.

“It was all over the map,” said Susan Eaton, whose husband, Barry Eaton, is on the city’s planning commission. “It was very extensive and specific.”

Susan Eaton also noticed the caller couldn’t pronounce some of the names of people and places, which leads her to believe the poller isn’t someone in the area.

“I refused to answer a couple of questions because, and I told them, that the questions were skewed to get a certain response,” said resident Georgine Vaught.

For example, she said, she was asked whether she’s pro-development or anti-development.

Vaught thinks the poll encompassed “all of the things that a developer might want or the city of Newport Beach might want to know.”

So who’s behind it?

“Everybody wants to know,” Assistant City Manager Sharon Wood said.

It’s no secret that the City Council in January voted to hire consultant M4 Strategies to launch a public information campaign on the city’s general plan update, but that contract doesn’t include any polling, Wood said.

“I’ve heard maybe it’s the chamber of commerce, maybe it’s the Irvine Co., maybe it’s the developers in the airport area, maybe it’s Greenlight.... The only thing I know is it’s not the city,” she said.

Vaught said she asked the caller, who was a man named David with a company called Western Research, who was conducting the poll.

“I asked David who hired Western Research, and he didn’t know,” she said.

Another resident who got the call is burning to know who’s doing the polling: Councilman Dick Nichols.

“It was very political,” he said. “I just thought it was a pretty intrusive poll because the questions were pretty pointed.”

But he did get the chance to give his unvarnished opinion of Councilman Dick Nichols.

“I thought he was OK,” Nichols said, laughing.