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2018/06/04 - Walter's Blog: National Citizens Survey

Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton

 

What do you think about the City of O'Fallon? Do you think we are doing a good job? Do you feel safe in O’Fallon? Are you satisfied with the quality of life in O’Fallon? These are the kinds of questions we are asking in our recent Citizen Survey. Every two years, we conduct a Citizen Survey to learn resident opinions about City services and to find out how we are doing.

Surveys will be mailed out next week to 1,600 randomly selected O’Fallon residents. If you receive a survey, please take the time to complete it and send it back. All answers are anonymous, and results will be tabulated by a third party. We will not see any names or specific survey responses. We expect to receive the final report in September.

Why do a survey in the first place? For one thing, it is difficult to know how citizens feel about City services. A small number of citizens attend public meetings, but they are normally issue-specific. We receive emails and phone calls from residents, but they are usually to complain about a service. We rarely hear from people who are satisfied with City services. Good reasons to survey include: to measure service performance, to assess community needs, and to evaluate potential policies or community characteristics.

This will be our sixth survey since 2005. The National Research Center compares our survey results with the responses from more than 500 other cities that used the same survey. The advantage of using a national survey is we now have trend data comparing responses over time with other communities throughout the country. We also can compare responses internally through demographics and geographic location of the respondents. We feel it is critical to know resident opinions of City services and what their priorities are.

The complete reports from previous surveys are on the City’s web site. Drawing on the results of previous surveys, I am pleased to report the following conclusions:

  • O’Fallon residents enjoy a high quality of life.
  • O’Fallon is a good place to live and raise a family.
  • O’Fallon residents value and appreciate a high level of safety.
  • Most City services were rated higher than in previous years and were either similar to or higher than benchmarks compared to other cities.
  • O’Fallon residents support the overall direction of O’Fallon.

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. The survey results indicate 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 will continue to work on the priorities listed in previous surveys and look for creative methods to implement them.