HomeMy WebLinkAbout7.c. Citizen Attitude SurveyIL 11 of 2875 -145TH ST. W
ROSEMOUNT. MINNESOTA 55068
osemou 612 423-4411
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AGENDA ITEM 7(C)
January 14, 1988
TO: City Council and Staff
FROM: Rollan Hoke, Mayor
RE: Citizen Attitude Survey
Many of you have expressed interest in a professionally done
citizen attitude survey. In order to educate myself to the
benefit of such a survey, I talked with representatives of three
city staffsp Shoreview, Roseville and Inver Grove Hts., all of
which have recently conducted professionally done citizen
attitude surveys. The three cities that I talked top including
cities of Cottage Grove and Woodbury, have all went through a
vendor called Decision Resources who conducted their citizen
attitude survey.
I would like to share with you a few of the responses from the
three different cities. The city manager of Shoreview felt that
it would have taken their staff years to generate and formulate
questions that wouldn't be bias and to even conduct such an
attitude survey. They were also very pleased with the quick turn
around. once the survey was formulated and the questions
composed, it only took them two weeks to do the survey and
computerize the results.
Ron Morris of the City of Roseville advised the cost to them for
their survey by Decision Resources was $7,200. He responded the
survey gave them excellent information --demographic information
and information about services. They also found the results very
helpful in long range planning. For example, he found that they
didn't have good sources of information to the public. He also
found out that the people did not know the focus of economic
development in their community. He was also very complimentary
about the sophistication of the results which included cross
tabulations of responses so you would know who said yes and who
said no; and excellent analyses, as he put it, as he felt they
really dig into the data. He also stated there is a very quick
turn around once you determine what you want to find out.
Bruce Anderson from the City of Inver Grove Heights said that
they paid $4,500. They were very pleased with the results. He
said that "it's as much data as I've seen for $4,500." He too
was impressed with the way they broke each question down by age,
income level and other components. He said "it is very
practical, it is not something that is going to sit on the
shelf."
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City Council and Staff
Citizen Attitude Survey
Page 2
I talked with Diane Traxler, one of the associates of Decision
Resources. In her discussion she conveyed to me they are very`
willing to come out for presentations to the council, to staff or
both. They will come to meetings until everyone is comfortable.
The process generally used is that each department, commission
and committee come up with their vision of what they want to
learn from this citizen attitude survey. By telling Decision
Resources what you want to learn, they pose and formulate the
questions to find out what you want to know.
There are four main components in the assessment:
First Component: The Use Assessment -- general questions about
the services the city provides.
SecondComponent: Parks & Recreation
Third Component: Development
people shop, where they would
development they would like t,
Fourth Component: Referendum
background on what kind of ta:
might want to run, whether it
on the results of the survey.
questions that help survey where
like to shop, what kinds of other
D see or not see.
Probe -- would give the city some
K referendum or bond referendum you
would be successful or not, based
While I realize Decision Resources is not the only vendor and
that we need to perhaps look at more, I was impressed with the
willingness of Decision Resources to work with the Council and
staff before the survey is conducted; and especially important,
after, to help interpret it, to work with citizen advisory
committees, and to review the data. There is just a whole range
of different areas with which they are willing to help.
I am convinced a professionally done survey can give us the input
necessary for setting goals and constructing a vision for the
city's future. The action I would recommend at the January 19
Council meeting, Item 7(c), is to recommend to have staff
research various avenues or methods of conducting citizen
attitude surveys.
The Cities of Shoreview, Roseville, and Inver Grove Hts. have all
sent me copies of the citizen attitude surveys and the tabulation
of results if anyone is interested in seeing those.
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