I believe he is trying to say that 1) drawing conclusions from the one-time observations of a single individual is unlikely to be accurately representative of the actual situation, and is at great risk of all sorts of selection, recall, and confirmation biases. 2) in that context, ignoring all the other managerial responsibilities of a mayoral position so you can engage in a relatively non-scientific attempt at information gathering when you have people you can consult who are experts on the topic and have spent years studying and collecting data, is quite rightly a poor use of time.