Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton
August 14, 2007
Last Thursday, we held a special Finance and Administration Committee meeting to go over the recent Community Citizen Survey. O’Fallon participated in a national survey program where we could compare resident opinions on City services with more than 400 other cities that have taken the same survey.
In general, the survey results were very positive and showed that residents are pleased with City services and enjoy living in O’Fallon. We conducted the same survey in 2005, and nearly all responses in the 2007 survey are similar or better than in 2005. In addition, the results indicate that citizens rate City services higher than in most other cities that have taken the survey. [Note: we will try to get survey information on the web site soon.]
Let’s get to the details:
- 83% of respondents are pleased with the Overall Quality of Life
- 72% are pleased with Overall Quality of City Services
- 90% are pleased with O’Fallon as a place to live
- 77% have a positive overall impression of City employees.
All of these areas are “above the norm” compared to results in other cities that have taken the survey. These are very good ratings and I am pleased that residents have such a high opinion of O’Fallon and city government.
Ratings also were high in specific service areas:
- 88% are pleased with the Police Department
- 91% are pleased with EMS
- 93% are pleased with the Fire Department
- 84% are pleased with the Parks and Recreation Department
- 86% are pleased with the O’Fallon Public Library
Other services received lower ratings but they are in areas that traditionally do not get high marks (such as code enforcement and street repair). However, our survey results still compared favorably to other cities.
Also as a part of the survey, we inserted some customized questions specific to O’Fallon. First, we asked whether residents would support a $3-$5 monthly fee to fund stormwater improvements and 65% opposed or strongly opposed the fee. Similarly, we asked whether residents would support a $3-$5 monthly fee to establish a storm/disaster clean up fund and 64% opposed or strongly opposed.
We asked one open-ended question asking respondents the top three reasons why they live in O’Fallon. Here are the top five responses:
- Schools
- Proximity to St. Louis/Location
- Safety
- Sense of community
- Close to work
So what do we do with this information? First of all, it is helpful to know that O’Fallon residents are pleased with City services and enjoy living here. In that respect, we are doing something right and we need to continue to provide excellent services to our citizens. It also is helpful to know why people live in O’Fallon and we need to keep those things in mind when we are making decisions for O’Fallon’s future.
We did receive some conflicting responses in the survey and we will definitely pursue why they occurred. In particular, the ratings on “Public Trust” demonstrated some curious opinions that we will have to analyze further. In my next blog, I will explore the Public Trust ratings.
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