How do you rate city services?

This week, 1,200 randomly selected Fredericksburg residents will receive postcards telling them to look for a 20-question survey all about Fredericksburg’s city government.

City Council members voted in November to spend $11,400 on this survey, which is being conducted by the Boulder, Col.,-based National Research Center. This National Citizen Survey has been conducted in more than 200 communities around the country.

The actual surveys will be mailed Feb. 18, and city officials are trying to get the word out to make sure the response rate is as high as possible. Read their press release here.

You can see the survey here. It asks residents to rate specific city services, and asks them to rate Fredericksburg on a wide range of factors, from its openness to diversity to the availability of quality health care and child care. Other questions focus on specific things like the city’s incentives program and other economic development efforts.

The results of the survey will be reported to the city in April.

Post tags: City Council

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/citybeat/2011/02/14/how-do-you-rate-city-services/

Rochester

City service – what’s that?
Matt Kelly

Information of little use–

http://questeverything.blogspot.com/2010/11/national-citizens-survey.html
Matt Kelly

Would love to hear from someone who receives it, get some insight on what they thought about it, and maybe a bit more info on what went into their answers beyond just (1) thru (5).
CityGuy

I received the postcard yesterday. I’ll keep you posted when I receive the actual survey. It’s a good thing the City is seeking input from the residents, but I still think it’s a ridiculous amount of money to spend for the amount of people it reaches (That amounts to almost $100 per survey!) I know postal rates have gone up lately, but I didn’t realize they were that expensive nowadays!
CityGuy

Sorry, my math was wrong.. that’s $10 per survey, not $100.
Beacon1964

CitGuy … maybe you should rethink doing the survey if you can’t even do basic math. $11,400/1200 = $9.50 per survey not the $100 you say.

What will be most interesting is to know the demographics of the 1200 people and how many of them and what demographic portions return the surveys. If it is highly in the upper and middle class areas of the city those in Mayfield, Bragg Hill and other areas will not be represented at all.
George

In calculating the cost you can’t just say that 11400/1200 = 9.50 per survey because then if they wanted to survey just and only one random person would it only cost 9.50. of course not
Rufus

I just hope that the City gets an “F-minus” like it deserves.
Matt Kelly

Had a conversation with someone at coffee today who is philosophically opposed to incentives. I’ve also been told by some that we are not going far enough. I advised another acquaintance who had concerns about the quality of the jobs being created to ask current members of Council about higher paying jobs. The response to the e-mail from one Council member was –”Thank-you for your comments.” There are opposing views and a lot of questions about this subject. How will checking numbers reflect differing views or answer community questions?

The city has not explained what the plan is for the use of incentives or the goals they are trying to achieve. Without putting the discussion of incentives, or services for that matter, into some kind of context how valid will the (1) thru (5) responses be?

If Council is serious about communicating with the community my suggestion would be answer residents questions, write an OpEd or two on the issues of the day, host or attend a community meeting s, and add a Public Hearing or two on the agenda.
Tom Fortune

Who is going to keep track of all these incentive agreements anyway? Each one is specific and have differing benchmarks, reporting requirements, dollar cutoff amounts, etc. I dont think it is realistic to think that the city will be able to monitor these in a responsible way, especially as they grow and multiply. The net result will be (I predict) that money will be dispersed without the businesses ever having to live up to the performance agreements they have signed.
Phil

At this rate Fredericksburg city will become a desolate wasteland of bars and restaurants picking at each others entrails, while bar patrons will be huddling in empty storefront doorways smoking their 3am cig. Great way to spend incentive dollars.
Tom Fortune

Pizza parlors, pool halls, overpriced wine bars, noisy burger joints, and starvin art galleries – thats about it for the downtown incentive program. Sad … might we do better?
Dartmouth

No, because City Council is bush league and fixated on penny-ante downtown businesses that they themselves want to patrinize.
http://adelaidepcrepairs.com.au/landing/computer-virus-removal-adelaide phoebe

Each one is specific and have differing benchmarks, reporting requirements, dollar cutoff amounts, etc. I dont think it is realistic to think that the city will be able to monitor these in a responsible way, especially as they grow and multiply. computer virus removal adelaide empty storefront doorways smoking their 3am cig. Great way to spend incentive dollars.

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How do you rate city services?