A Message from Chamber CEO Douglass Wilhoit:
And now the rest of the Story ...

APRIL 2008 - As you are aware, the Port O Call goes out once a month to members of the Chamber! My February article, written after your Board’s direction to me, took exception to a negative headline in The Record. Mike Fitzgerald chose to comment about it in his public column.

On February 27, 2008 Mr. Howard Lachtman submitted a letter to The Record and cc’d the Chamber.

Your Board of Directors reviewed the copy of Mr. Lachtman’s letter at its meeting on Thursday, February 28, 2008 and DIRECTED me to print Mr. Lachtman’s letter in the april Port O Call if it was not published in The Record by our printing deadline of Monday, March 24, 2008. This was affirmed by your Executive Committee on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 .

Mr. Lachtman was a highly respected Record community reporter from 1981 to 2005. His many assignments included film reviewer and restaurant reviewer, entertainment reporter (including five trips to the Academy Awards), general assignment reporter and religion writer.

In 2006 Mr. Lachtman was presented with a Career Recognition Award by the Stockton Arts Commission “for 24 years of superior review and commentary on the performing arts in Stockton as published in The Record.”

Currently Mr. Lachtman is a reporter for Comstocks Business Magazine with Stockton as his “beat.” He is also an adjunct professor at Humphreys College teaching in the area of Communication Skills.

as famous radio personality Paul Harvey always said, “NOW THE REST OF THE STORY.”

— Doug Wilhoit

From Howard Lachtman’s communication to the Record, dated Feb 27, 2008. Reprinted with his permission:

Mike Fitzgerald’s treatment of Chamber of Commerce CEO Douglass Wilhoit was less responsible journalism than a pie-throwing contest with Mr. Wilhoit as the target. Fitzgerald treated Mr. Wilhoit’s objections to a “Drearytown” headline and negative civic survey as proof of a Babbitt-like complex about Stockton boosterism — a mantra to see no evil and hear no evil about Stockton and attack any story that speaks evil of Stockton.

In fact, a close examination of this and other civic rankings shows that Mr. Wilhoit is quite correct to challenge findings that purport to assess our city with statistical reliability and validity. The Record itself acknowledged such faults in a Jan. 17 editorial, stating that “While well-compensated consultants can be helpful, their work also is self-serving and somewhat random. Their conclusions are debatable.” Should Mr. Wilhoit be faulted for debating some of those results? Or for defending, as the editorial suggests, “What’s positive about our home”?

Fitzgerald seems unaware that the root of Mr. Wilhoit’s concern has to do with something far more injurious than slangy headlines or wisecracking journalists who engage in sit-down comedy (“Welcome tourists, to Mt. Wilhoit. This venerable volcano erupts only when somebody publicly criticizes the city of Stockton”).

First, a word as to the surveys and rankings to which Mr. Wilhoit takes exception. While accurate surveys and impartial assessments should be welcome by any community as a means of self-awareness and potential improvement, a close look at the Stockton literacy and lifestyle rankings—and the recent “misery index” concocted by Forbes Magazine—reveals dubious research, statistically narrow or flawed data, and faulty conclusions.

Let’s begin with the most recent case. The Forbes study stated that it was conducted among America’s “largest metropolitan areas,” with populations of at least 371,000. Stockton has not yet arrived at that figure. Indeed, the only way Stockton could qualify for the Forbes list is by using county figures (679,000) instead of municipal ones (289,789). Did Forbes assume Stockton was a countywide “metropolis” in which cities such as Lodi, Tracy and Manteca were mere suburbs? The misery index’s use of those numbers puts Stockton on a list with Los Angeles and New York. Given Forbes’ own criterion, it’s erroneous. Simple logic should tell us that one goes nowhere fast equating Stockton with the Big Apple and the Big Orange, except perhaps in asparagus production.

Other studies, when examined closely, reveal other errors. Take the literacy rating devised by Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). It has ranked Stockton at the bottom of the literary list for three consecutive years — surely a record for wayward consistency (and the kind that makes scrupulous statisticians suspicious). Note that the top of the literacy list is occupied by affluent and populous metro centers such as Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco, cities far out of our league who share none of our particular social, economic, or ESL (English as Second Language) problems. The data employed is questionable.

The survey took no measure of factors such as Stockton’s numerous book clubs, the highly-rated Friends of the Library Book Store, the Stockton Art Commission’s annual writing competition, and pro-literacy library programs such as the “One Book, One San Joaquin” and this year’s Big Read, awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. Nor did it take into account the thousands of daily commuters to the Bay Area whose time to patronize local bookstores and libraries is limited to days off. Taking these and other factors into consideration might have mitigated the ranking and corrected its image of Stocktonians as book-bereft hicks with dunce caps.

CCSU is 3,000 miles away and grabbed numbers without sending a researcher here to ask questions and survey the scene. Ought we to treat this rating as a trustworthy measurement of literacy deficiency? A Record editorial was quite right to state “its validity and relevancy remain dubious.” Another reminded us to beware of “specious evaluations” and “questionable judgments.” No doubt Mr. Wilhoit would agree.

Now take our own 2007 city survey about lifestyle satisfaction (compiled by no local entity, by the way, but “a Colorado-based consulting company”). Less than a quarter of the 1200 polled responded to this poll. 25 cents won’t buy you a dollar. Does less than 25 percent buy you a reliable survey? That depends on your faith in extrapolation. Commentators have stated that most of those surveyed responded “poorly or negatively.” In fact, 20 percent gave the city a rating of “poor” while 50 per cent labeled it “fair.” But “fair” is not necessarily a negative term. The meaning of “fair” is unclear because it often depends on one’s tone of voice to denote either acceptance (fair as in “It’s okay”), grudging acceptance (fair as in “no better than okay”) or complaint (fair as in “not good enough for me”). Combining a 50 percent “fair” response with a 20 per cent “poor” response doesn’t add up to a 70 percent “negative” rating or, indeed, much of anything.

Issues of data interpretation and miscommunication should concern all of us. They certainly do Mr. Wilhoit, given his agenda to improve Stockton’s business climate, employment numbers and investment attractiveness. The letters from readers that Mr. Fitzgerald quoted to support his attack accused Mr. Wilhoit of being unrealistic, elitist, shortsighted, and irrelevant. May I ask what these critics are doing to improve the commercial and investment prospects on which the future of this city depend? Without the jobs, commercial expansion and city tax revenues that Mr. Wilhoit and other activists are attempting to bring to Stockton, does anyone really think we are going to progress beyond the problems of debt, unemployment, poverty and crime that plague our city? To complain of the latter without seeing the benefit of the former is to admit the problem and deny the solution.

Negative and inaccurate surveys of Stockton take their toll on civic image and self-esteem. Is Mr. Wilhoit right to challenge them? Does the mere fact that these surveys exist make them newsworthy? Despite statistical skews and assessment flaws, they will be read and regarded by prospective residents and investors. That is where the damage is done. That is why Mr. Wilhoit has cause to be concerned about stories and headlines that suggest we’re living in Drearytown, Miseryville or Whosville. He sees us as Someplace Special instead of Someplace Awful. He wants us to be cruising on the Delta and dancing on the roof of the Hotel Stockton instead of packing the truck and fleeing to rural Iowa.

This isn’t — as Fitzgerald sees it -— a laughing matter of Chamber defensiveness or hypersensitivity or censorship of news we don’t happen to like. Announced city budget cuts and shortfalls spell hard times ahead for many of our citizens. Attracting businesses and investment is crucial. While Rome burns, Fitzgerald fiddles. Perhaps a crash course in statistics and information assessment might help remind him that not every poll or survey is above reproach, and that the concerns of the Chamber of Commerce chief might not be quite as amusing as he portrays them. No doubt Fitzgerald will continue to portray Mr. Wilhoit as a mindlessly optimistic do-gooder whose protests are ripe for ridicule. As for those who will bear the burden of careless researchers and heedless reporters, one wonders if your columnist’s response will be “let them eat cake.” Ironically, he himself has observed that “the brutally low rankings the city has recently received does not jibe with the reality. It distorts and darkens the experience of living here.” On that, he and the outspoken Mr. Wilhoit (“I think polls are a bunch of bunk”) are in perfect agreement.

— Howard Lachtman