A former Aberdeen lawyer is suing the developer of the Wetlands Golf Course project for allegedly asking for a poll of city voters and never paying for it, though the developer?s spokesman said he declined that offer.
Thomas McLaughlin filed suit Friday in Harford County District Court against Wetlands owner Sam Smedley for $29,634, to cover the costs of a poll McLaughlin said Smedley agreed to with an “oral contract” and a handshake Nov. 1. The phone poll was intended to gauge support for Aberdeen?s annexation of 523 acres, including Smedley?s land, which will be decided by special vote Tuesday.
Smedley?s manager for the campaign to approve the annexation, Rommel Crabtree, said McLaughlin had a separate meeting with him on Nov. 3 and offered to run a poll, but was turned down because Crabtree had done his own polls earlier and did not want any more.
McLaughlin said Smedley had already agreed to pay his costs and fees, and even offered him health insurance at the Nov. 1 meeting. He took Crabtree?s rejection as an indicator that he would work for Smedley independently from the campaign, he said.
“I was already hired from Sam?s point of view; I wasn?t there to work for Crabtree,” McLaughlin said.
Smedley told The Examiner that he didn?t know about any poll, but it was unclear whether he was referring just to the results. He referred any additional questions to Crabtree ? actually passing the phone to Crabtree, who happened to be meeting with him.
Out of nearly 1,600 phone calls attempted, only 230 answered their phones, McLaughlin said. Among the voters he reached, 173 knew about the upcoming annexation vote; 57 percent (99 respondents) said they would vote against the annexation. Asked to rate their feelings about the annexation, 103 said they were either opposed or strongly opposed to it, while 28 were either for or strongly for it.
Additionally, McLaughlin predicted a turnout of only about 10 percent for the special election, due to a lack of knowledge about the issue, low participation in get-out-the-vote efforts, and disinterest in a vote coming so soon after the midterm campaign season.
Avery Ward, a professor of political science at Harford Community College, said he could not confirm the validity of the poll without knowing more about how the sample was selected, but he agreed that turnout was likely to be low.
