Backers of land transfer tax press on

A $10,000 poll found the idea unpopular in Orange County, but the poll is seen as flawed

CHAPEL HILL -- It got trounced in Chatham County. Wake and Durham aren't going for it. It faces well-financed, organized opposition, and Orange County's own poll showed most likely voters would mark "no."

So how did a 0.4 percent land transfer tax wind up on Orange's May 6 primary ballot?

THE POLL: In early February, the Orange County Board of Commissioners agreed to pay Carrboro pollster Hertzog Research $10,000 for a public opinion poll.

Two weeks later, it showed only one in three likely voters supported a land transfer tax, with a majority opposed. About half of voters supported a local sales tax increase instead.

Opponents of the transfer tax have said the county isn't listening to its own poll, but another local polling company says it might not be that simple.

"It was flawed," said Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling. "What we've pretty much found is that people will be much more favorable to the first thing that you asked about than the second thing you asked about."

Jensen said he looked at the Hertzog poll, and saw the question order hadn't been randomized.

"I think that there is more support for the transfer tax in Orange County than what that poll indicated," said Jensen, the communications director at Public Policy Polling, which is based in Raleigh.

"I still think it's an uphill battle," he said.

The county's poll is also the focus of a complaint filed by a Hillsborough man.

Michael Griffin accused the county of using the poll to conduct an advocacy campaign. "The board ... has only chosen to seek out the objections likely voters have to the land transfer tax, so that it can devise a media campaign to counter those objections," his petition said.

The county Board of Elections has referred the complaint to the State Board of Elections.

THE MONEY: In addition to the $10,000 spent on the poll -- Jensen said his firm would have done it for $2,500 -- Orange County is spending as much as $100,000 on an education campaign. The county hired Durham's Ballen Media, which has also developed the county's transfer tax education Web site, www.yourchoice-oc.com.

Much of the organized opposition comes from the Greensboro-based N.C. Association of Realtors, and Citizens for a Better Orange County, which it funds.

A spokesman for Citizens for a Better Orange County declined to say how much the group had spent. Its next reporting deadline is Monday.

"We're spending as much as we can to get our point across," said Mark Zimmerman, a Chapel Hill real estate broker who lives in Durham County and owns property in Orange.

THE CAMPAIGNS: The county commissioners decided to dedicate revenue from the tax to schools and parks.

They're also sending a "pay now or pay later" message, saying a land transfer tax will offset future property tax rate increases.

"Currently most of our money for schools, parks, conservation, recreation and what not comes from the property tax you all pay annually," Commissioner Mike Nelson wrote in e-mail this week. "By having another source of revenue, we will be able to remove some of the burden from our property tax rate."

Opponents such as the Realtors association say the tax penalizes homeowners and call it a "home tax," a label found on signs dotting the county.

"I think even in a good real estate market that there are myriad reasons why this tax is not a good way of taxing people," Zimmerman said. "But it's worse when the market is not doing well. It hurts the people who have to pay it more when it's a challenging time to sell a house."