Cape survey leaked on forum

The plan to survey 3,000 city of Cape Girardeau residents as part of the DREAM Initiative has taken a slight detour.

The survey, intended to help the city redefine its downtown area, was mailed more than a week ago. Included in the survey was a Web address for participants who wanted to answer the questions online. On Nov. 7, a link to the survey was posted on an online forum for local musicians, Cape Scene, www.capescene.com, by Timexx Nasty, frontman for the hard-rock band Drivin' Rain. He'd received a paper survey.

"It didn't say anything about not telling anyone," said Nasty, 36, in a phone interview Wednesday.

After including a link, www.downtowncapesurvey.org, Nasty wrote on the forum "everyone here on capescene needs to go fill this out. Spread the word and pass the info. Lets make sure the over 60 year olds dont define the fate of Capes downtown!"

Tim Arbeiter, vice president for community development at the Cape Gir-ardeau Area Chamber of Commerce, said he's not bothered by the leak. In fact, he said, it's "kind of an honor.

"I'm not a blogger, but it's kind of cool. At least it shows the younger people of our town are taking an interest," he said.

Paper surveys are being mailed to the chamber's office, where the answers are being added to the online survey. He said the Web site would have been made public today.

The survey builds on comments from focus groups questioned earlier this year, as well as visitor surveys. The 3,000 recipients of this month's paper survey were randomly selected, according to Sharon Gotter, a project manager at Unicom-Arc, the St. Louis company running the survey for Cape Girardeau and nine other Dream Initiative cities. She said some demographic information on the surveys would be compared to the city's population.

"If we find demographics don't match -- if we find an overabundance of people over 65, or the reverse, and those figures don't reflect the actual makeup of the city, we would add weight to the responses," she said, explaining that adding weight means to adjust results so they accurately reflect a city's demographics.

The first round of survey data would not be so calculated, she said.

She said by Wednesday morning, 112 people had answered the survey questions online.

Whether those people received paper surveys or found the link on the Cape Scene chat room "at this point is probably impossible to tell," she said.

The deadline to return paper surveys is today. However, Gotter said they can be mailed in over the next few days.

"If they mail it a month from now, it's probably too late."

The online survey will run for about two more weeks.

Nasty said the survey "asks some good questions. I was glad to see they were asking about entertainment ... Cape has the potential to turn into a small Memphis or New Orleans."

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127