Tuesday, April 09, 2002

WILMINGTON, NC – Gov. Mike Easley and Wilmington Mayor Harper Peterson received high marks on their job performances in a survey conducted by the Institute of Political Leadership at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

In this random poll, conducted with 292 registered, active New Hanover County voters, 49 percent approved of Easley’s handling of the governorship. Forty-six percent of the respondents approved Peterson’s job performance. The IOPL’s spring class of fellows conducted the survey Friday, April 5.

“New Hanover County is a statistical bellwether for the entire state, that is, as the county goes on state candidates and issues — so goes the state,” said Dr. Walter De Vries, director of the IOPL. “This, by the way, has been true for more than 25 years.”

Among the candidates vying for the state’s U.S. senate seat, Elizabeth Dole was identified favorably by 64 percent of the respondents compared to 28 percent for Erskine Bowles, 13 percent for Dan Blue and 11 percent for Elaine Marshall.

“What is really significant is the extraordinarily large number of voters who have ‘no opinion,’ ‘never heard of’ or were ‘not sure of’ the Democratic candidates,” said De Vries. While 19 percent of New Hanover respondents had “no opinion,” “never heard of” or were “not sure of” of Dole, the figures for Bowles, Blue and Marshall were 57, 77 and 86 percent, respectively.

On the local front, the poll surveyed the performance of the Wilmington City Council and New Hanover County Board of Commissioners.

Respondents were almost evenly divided in their opinion of the city council. Thirty-two percent approved of the council’s functioning, 29 percent disapproved. Voter support for commissioners was higher - 39 percent of respondents endorsed the board’s operation, 20 percent were critical.

As for the major issues facing the county, De Vries said 34 percent of the voters cited issues related to growth and the environment: 18.9 percent cited traffic/road problems, followed by growth/planning/uncontrolled growth at 11.6 percent and environment/land use at 4 percent. These results are almost identical to fall 2001 when 33 percent of the respondents named the same problems. In addition, 10.9 percent of those surveyed said taxes were too high, and more than 6 percent said the county faced too many problems to narrow to one.

The survey also assessed public opinion on how the University of North Carolina at Wilmington is serving New Hanover County. Eighty-one percent of respondents said UNCW is doing a good or excellent job serving New Hanover County citizens. Virtually the same percentage (38 percent excellent, 42 percent fair) lauded the university’s efforts at providing educational opportunities for residents. In addition, the majority of those surveyed rated UNCW favorably as a source for cultural/entertainment opportunities and in helping with the county’s economic development. UNCW Seahawk sports earned top marks with 85 percent ranking them good or excellent.

For a complete copy of the survey results, go to the Web site www.uncwil.edu/news. A copy is available in HTML as well as PDF for easier viewing and printing.

For additional commentary from Dr. De Vries, call 910/962-7579.