Community Survey 2022

On July 28, 2021, the Town issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for Community Survey Consultant Services to conduct a scientific community survey to gather resident feedback and measure satisfaction with Town services, quality of life, and other information to help the Town better understand the community’s priorities, concerns, and needs.

Based on staff review and scoring of the proposals, interviews, and reference checks, the Town engaged the services of ETC Institute to perform the Community Survey.

In consultation with the Town, ETC Institute developed the Community Survey instrument which was mailed to a random sample of households starting February 2, 2022.  At the conclusion of the survey response period, ETC Institute received 650 completed surveys, surpassing the goal of 400 households, and equating to a precision of at least +/-3.8% at the 95% level of confidence.  The survey sample was both representative of demographic and geographic respondents.  

The Community Survey results and Community Survey GIS Mapping were initially presented to the Town Council on May 3, 2022.  The staff report and meeting minutes are available on the Town website.  A video recording of the full meeting and discussion is available on the Town YouTube channel. 

The results are also available via an in Interactive Data Dashboard.

Provided below are some of the high-level importance and satisfaction findings from the survey.  

  • Almost all residents rated the Town as either an excellent or good place to live (97.2%) and as a place to raise children (93.4%).  Compared to the national average in both of these categories, the Town’s rating as a place to live was almost double the national average of 49.7% and 31% points above the national average as a place to raise children.
  • The top two Town services that are most important to residents are the overall quality of Town police services (55.4%) and the overall maintenance of Town streets, sidewalks, and infrastructure (52.0%).
  • Based on the sum of resident’s top three choices, the top three community investment areas most important for the Town to pursue are: improving traffic flow to reduce traffic congestion (61.9%), maintaining streets, sidewalks, and storm sewer systems (39.7%), and increasing neighborhood police patrols (37.7%).

In addition to the individual importance and satisfaction findings in the survey ETC Institute develops an Importance-Satisfaction (I-S) rating.   The Importance-Satisfaction (I-S) rating is based on the concept that public agencies will maximize overall resident satisfaction by emphasizing improvements in those areas where the level of satisfaction is relatively low, and the perceived importance of the service is relatively high.  Based on the results of this analysis, the major services that are recommended as the top opportunity for improvement over the next two years, in order to raise the Town's overall satisfaction rating are:

  • The overall maintenance of Town streets, sidewalks, and infrastructure (I-S Rating=0.1940)
  • Town Planning, Buildings, and Development services (I-S Rating=0.1625)
  • Overall quality of Town police services (I-S Rating=0.1424)

The second level of analysis reviewed the importance of and satisfaction with specific areas of services. This analysis was conducted to help Department managers set priorities for their Department.  Based on the results of this analysis, the services that are recommended as the top priorities within each Department over the next two years are listed below:

  • Public Safety: the Town’s overall efforts to prevent crime, visibility of police personnel in neighborhoods, efforts to collaborate with the public to address concerns, and effectiveness of local police protection.
  • Streets, Sidewalks, and Infrastructure: flow of traffic on Town streets.
  • Park Facilities: walking and biking trails in Town.
  • Economic Opportunity: how well the Town is managing growth, available support for entrepreneurs and small business owners, efforts to attract new business and tourism, availability of adequate and affordable housing units, and access to quality and affordable housing.
  • Communication and Community Engagement: efforts by the Town to keep residents informed about local issues, opportunities for residents to engage in improvements in their neighborhood, opportunities for residents to engage in development projects in their neighborhood, opportunities for residents to engage/provide input into decisions made by elected officials, and the availability of information about Town programs and services.