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Lucas said he wasn’t surprised much of the negative feedback focused on the short timeline for public engagement.

“There never was a very clear argument made by anyone in the process about why the number had to be seven days,” said Lucas. “And why was it impossible to add a week or two, or indeed a month or two to the process. It’s interesting to see people were frustrated by that.”

A ThinkHQ survey also found opinion evenly split, at 47 per cent each. The poll of 645 Calgarians carried a margin of error of +/- 3.9 per cent.

A number of city council members who were asked for comment Friday did not respond to Postmedia’s request. Previously, some council members had estimated the feedback on the arena to be 50-50 between detractors and proponents.

A sizable portion of feedback went directly to council members, including the mayor who received “several hundred” responses to his office, a spokesperson confirmed Friday. Postmedia has only reviewed submissions that were sent to the City Clerk’s office.

University of Michigan professor Mark Rosentraub, who has consulted for cities and sports teams looking at new stadiums and arenas, including Calgary, says a random survey would be a better gauge of Calgarians’ attitudes on the deal.

Different jurisdictions have taken different approaches to decision making on public funding for sport venues, he said.

“In California, no city can allocate money for a sport venue without a referendum. So there you have a very different decision structure because it must go to a referendum and then there’s a lot of public discourse,” Rosentraub said.

But the ultimate test of whether or not Calgarians feel that their interests were represented could be in the next election.

“Each way of doing it has its ups and its downs. In Calgary, a lot of authority is vested in the council. They were elected, they voted and they voted (in favour of the deal). If people are dissatisfied, then they should vote the scoundrels out.”

— With reports from Olivia Condon, Darren Francey and Steve Jenkinson

mpotkins@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @mpotkins