Growing up, I remember my mother would sometimes say, “If they’re willing to lie, they’re also willing to cheat and steal.”

Mark Twain more famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Such describes the content of the opinion poll reported on in todays newspaper. The poll by the way was conducted by SMS research “through Peters Communications”. Shane Peters is frequently cited as being the “communications adviser” for Utah owners/developers of the proposed Coco Palms Hotel.

Translation: Coco Palms Developer Reef Capital, hired Peters Communications to hire SMS Research, to conduct a poll of Kauaʻi residents that shows the proposed Coco Palms Hotel development is popular and has broad community support. So they did.

They framed just the right questions and then cherry-picked the responses of course.

“As demolition work progresses on the Coco Palms Resort, a new poll shows robust support for the restoration of the once-renowned property that was destroyed by Hurricane Iniki in 1992.” Says the newspaper article and press release.

The article quotes the Utah developer at length but unfortunately does not describe or quote for readers the actual questions in the poll upon which the conclusion of “robust support” was based.

I happened to be one of the Kauaʻi residents who received the poll in the mail. Here is the exact question that was asked in the poll from which the conclusions of “robust support” is drawn. (see page of actual poll questions copy at bottom)

14. If Coco Palms can only either be restored or left in its current condition, which of those two options would you prefer?

Restore property
Property remains in current condition
Don’t know

The Utah developers gleefully reported in the newspaper that “The SMS Research Poll found that 61 percent of the people surveyed said they support the restoration effort. A total of 24 preferred the property remain in its current condition, while 15 percent said they did not know.”

This question is obviously designed to intentionally and fraudulently create an impression of strong public support for a hotel development.

The person responding to the poll question has only two real choices, “restore the property” and “property remains in current condition” –

Duh. Most people clearly do not want the property to remain in its current condition. But people were not given any other option like “demolish the existing structures and convert the property to a community park and cultural center.” Actually “restore the property” could be interpreted as get rid of the hotel and restore the fishponds and restore the lands as they were before the hotel.

Question #14 was clearly designed to achieve what the Utah developers wanted to achieve – and it did.

Intentionally misleading is close enough to lying for me to tell you my mother would say the Utah developers are liars, cheats, and crooks.

The word fraud and fraudulent come to mind. Oh almost forgot, did I mention that one of the representatives of the Utah developer was actually convicted of fraud in a federal court?

Another question asked in the actual poll but conveniently not mentioned in the Utah developer’s press release was:

12. Turning to community issues, new owners of the Coco Palms are planning to restore the property. Do you support or oppose the rebuilding of Coco Palms?

Strongly support
Somewhat support
Somewhat oppose
Strongly oppose
Don’t know

Why wasn’t the community polling response to this question referenced or revealed? The answer of course is because the Utah developers don’t want you to know how the community really feels about their project.

#disgusting

What is also deeply troubling is the polling company SMS Research submitted a summary of the poll as testimony to the BLNR in support of the Utah Developers hotel proposal. Nowhere did they disclose in their testimony who paid for the poll. Their testimony also only referenced the response to question #14 and again ignored totally any mention of the results to question #12.

Read the SMS testimony here: https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/D-1T-1.pdf

My mother would be shocked, appalled, and disgusted by the actions of these Utah developers and their local enablers.

You should be too.

Gary Hooser
Private Citizen not speaking on behalf of any organization