The Journal Star has published the specific wording of the telephone poll recently completed by Peoria County regarding the proposed downtown museum:

The Peoria Riverfront Museum will enhance educational opportunities for all of central Illinois. The museum will house collections, a state-of-the-art planetarium, and an IMAX theater. The adjacent Caterpillar Visitor’s Center will welcome visitors from around the world. The project will create 250 union construction jobs, and upon completion will generate nearly $14 million annually to our local economy. The museum project is 86 percent funded.

This is practically the textbook definition of a push poll, which is inappropriate in general, but especially when perpetrated by the County government.

What do they mean it will “generate nearly $14 million annually to our local economy”? How do they figure that? According to a September 8, 2008, Journal Star article, “The annual operating budget [for the Peoria Regional Museum] is pegged at $4 million.” Where’s the other $10 million being generated? To just throw that out there as a fact is inappropriate; at best it should have read that “developers predict” it will generate $14 million annually or some other such clarification.

And the last line is really over the top. It states that “The museum project is 86 percent funded.” This is patently false. According to the Build the Block website, $73.7 million has been raised to date out of $119.4 million. That’s 61.7%. The overall funding for the project is divided into “public funding” and “private funding.” The “private funding” portion is reportedly at 86% ($67 million out of their $78 million goal). But this poll is about the public funding portion. It’s misleading to represent the “the museum project” — which can only be interpreted as the entire museum project, given that there is no context that would indicate otherwise — as “86% funded.” Even if the private funding were at 100% of their goal, the overall project would still only be 71% funded.

The bigger problem is that the county is doing this polling (at public expense) for one purpose: to develop wording for the referendum question that will make it most likely to gain the favor of voters. That means they’re actively advocating for a “yes” vote on the museum tax referendum and using public funds to do it. As Billy Dennis points out in his blog, that’s illegal. 10 ILCS 5/9-25.1(b) states, in part, “No public funds shall be used to urge any elector to vote for or against any candidate or proposition, or be appropriated for political or campaign purposes to any candidate or political organization.”

Why is the County carrying the museum’s water?