New poll numbers released today by Smart Growth Louisiana indicate the depth of public support for reopening Charity Hospital. Following up on last week's results which demonstrate 2 to 1 support for a plan to build a new facility inside historic Charity Hospital over the current LSU/VA medical center proposal, the new numbers show overwhelming favorability, 4 to 1, for hypothetical Mayoral candidates who support scrapping the LSU/VA in favor of the alternative plan. For African American voters, the preference is close to 6 to 1.

Survey respondents also expressed eye-opening support for the pro-transparency and resident participation initatives advocated by a coalition of now over 70 organizations, including an independent cost-benefit analysis of competing hospital plans (71%) and public hearings by City Council (83%). The failure of the city to hold public hearings in front of the City Planning Commission and City Council in accordance with the New Orleans Home Rule Charter before agreeing to cede Lower Mid-City for expropriation and the proposed medical complex development is now subject of a lawsuit.

The full press release with poll results from Smart Growth Louisiana is below the fold.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

N.O. voters prefer candidates for mayor, council who support reusing Charity Hospital, poll finds.

New Renwick survey shows that hospital controversy will be an election issue,  and that position on Charity could determine winners and losers.

August 10, 2009 – New Orleans voters would favor candidates for mayor and City Council who support reusing Charity Hospital as the new Louisiana State University teaching hospital, according to a new poll.

The controversy over the new LSU hospital will be an issue in the Orleans mayor and City Council, according to the public opinion survey of New Orleans voters by political scientist Edward F. Renwick. 

Building a modern hospital inside the shell of the old Charity is one alternative to create the new hospital.  LSU has proposed a different alternative, constructing a hospital in the Lower Mid-City neighborhood.

Voters who said they would be more likely to vote for candidates who favored building a new hospital inside Charity clearly outnumbered, by a 4-to-1 margin, voters who said they would be less likely to vote for such candidates.

“It’s clear that candidates for mayor and City Council could win or lose according to their positions on the hospital plans,” said Dr. Renwick, the recently retired executive director of Loyola University’s Institute of Politics. “The voters at this point seem to have very clear preference for candidates who are open to putting a new hospital inside the old Charity building.”

These newly released findings of the political impact of the hospital issue follow last week’s release of other information from the poll.  Last week’s release included these findings:

• The voters prefer building a new hospital inside Charity by a margin of 2-to-1 over the alternative location in the Lower Mid-City neighborhood.  Sixty percent favored the Charity site, while 30 percent favored the Lower Mid-City site preferred by LSU.
• They also believe that building a new modern hospital inside Charity would cause faster recovery and economic development in the Central Business District, also by a 2-to-1 margin.  

In the findings being released for the first time today, the voters also said they would favor candidates for City Council who would seek to involve the city and its citizens in planning the hospital project.  The current City Council has declined to get involved in the hospital planning process or to hold public hearings, arguing that it has no jurisdiction over a state government project. 

Seventy-four percent of the respondents would favor candidates seeking greater involvement by the city and its citizens in hospital plans, while only 13 percent would oppose.   Of black voters, 77 percent favored candidates seeking greater involvement, and 69 percent of white voters favored such a position.

The survey – the first publicly released poll measuring voter attitudes on the hospital controversy -- asked voters how the controversy would affect their choices in the 2010 election for mayor and City Council.  The primary election date is Feb. 6, and a run-off is scheduled for March 6. 

“Would you say you would be more likely or less likely to vote for candidates who supported building a new hospital inside the old Charity, or would it not matter to you?” 

By a 4-to-1 margin, voters said they would prefer such candidates.  Forty-four percent said they would be more likely to support candidates who favor a new hospital inside Charity, compared to 11 percent who said they would be less likely.  (Thirty-nine percent replied that it would not matter to them.)  

Of black voters, 50 percent said they would be more likely to support candidates favoring a new hospital inside Charity, while only 8 percent said they would be less likely.  Of white voters, 37 percent said they would be more likely to support candidates favoring a new hospital inside Charity, while only 13 percent said they would be less likely.

The voter preferences were consistent across all five City Council districts.

Dr. Renwick’s survey was conducted July 20-27 for Smart Growth for Louisiana, a non-profit New Orleans-based organization that supports citizen participation and transparency in planning.  The poll analyzed a sample of 504 registered voters in Orleans Parish contacted over land phone lines.  Its results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The poll results released last week also included the following:

• Voters said they would prefer mayoral candidates who considered other alternatives for the hospital than the plan supported by Mayor C. Ray Nagin.   Told that the mayor has committed City Hall to support LSU’s Lower Mid-City site, they were asked, “Would you prefer a candidate for mayor who continued Nagin’s approach or a candidate who would consider alternatives, including reusing Charity as a hospital?”  While 20 percent said they would continue Mayor Nagin’s approach, more than three times as many – 64 percent – said they would support a candidate who considered alternatives. 

• Eighty-three percent called on the New Orleans City Council to conduct public hearings to give citizens a voice in planning the new hospital.   Only 14 percent opposed such hearings. The City Council has declined to hold hearings on the hospital plans.  
• Voters strongly support a proposal for an objective analysis of the competing hospital plans, to determine which will do more good for New Orleans:  71 percent favored such an analysis, while 20 percent opposed the idea.  

This last finding supports a request to Gov. Bobby Jindal by more than 60 neighborhood, professional and healthcare groups.  They have asked him to order an independent study of both the LSU plan for Lower Mid-City and the alternative design for a modern hospital inside Charity, by the international architecture firm RMJM Hillier under a commission from the Foundation for Historical Louisiana.  The groups argue that such a study would resolve conflicting claims over which hospital plan is less expensive and quicker to build, and which would bring greater benefits to New Orleans.

LSU’s proposed $1.2 billion medical center, along with a similarly large medical complex planned by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, would demolish homes and businesses and close public streets on 25 blocks, covering about 70 acres, of the Lower Mid-City neighborhood.   They constitute the largest post-Katrina recovery project in the city, other than levee protection.   Opponents of the plan say that the two hospitals can be built more quickly and less expensively by reusing the Charity building, which they say would avoid unnecessary destruction to Lower Mid-City and weakening of the CBD.

The survey did not include questions about the VA hospital.