A new survey suggests most residents approve of the initiatives that city hall is pursuing — whether climate change, economic development, bylaw enforcement or the outdoor pool — but feel their taxes are unreasonable compared to the services they receive.
The municipality held an online survey between Sept. 16 and Oct. 10 and asked 22 questions about residents’ preferred spending priorities ahead of city council’s 2023 budget deliberations.
A total of 396 people responded, which, according to survey platform Survey Monkey, represents a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 per cent based on a population of 35,000.
Conversely, that also means only 1.14 per cent of the population bothered to respond.
City administration presented the survey results during council’s Nov. 14 regular meeting. The Express will have a separate story with that data.
“A lot of the initiatives we are working upon are being supported by the community, so that’s good to see,” said city manager Jim Puffalt.
Puffalt highlighted how while 58 per cent of respondents feel their taxes are unreasonable compared to the services they receive, 53 per cent believe the quality of services is satisfactory or excellent.
“So, a little bit mixed message for us,” he added.
With the multi-page report listing all the comments that residents provided, Puffalt noted that the city always invites customers to talk to city hall about issues.
Or, they should use the city app to report issues like potholes because city hall will respond faster to that than other communications methods; the city filled its 8,000th pothole on Nov. 14.
While there were many comments about infrastructure, Puffalt pointed out the municipality replaced nearly four kilometres of cast iron pipe this year. Moreover, this was the first year it completed everything infrastructure-related before the snow arrived. He attributed that to good planning and good work by city staff.
However, city hall did not address the cast iron pipes underneath Athabasca Street because it discovered there was more work required to address the storm mains than expected, he continued. It didn’t want to fix one issue and then return next year to dig up the road again.
“We want to make sure that once we go somewhere, we don’t have to come back for 20 years because we know how much of a disruption it is to people and businesses and everybody else,” Puffalt added.
Another issue respondents had was with the Ninth Avenue Southwest/Highway 2 road and how they believe it’s taking too long to fix.
“But as we’ve talked (in the past), we had to prove it was not a leaking water line before we could have (the Ministry of) Highways take responsibility for it,” Puffalt said.
“So, most of the time, there are good reasons why things take a bit longer than others … (because) there are underlying issues (and) currents that we’re trying to resolve.”
While the intersection of Ninth Avenue Northwest and Highway 1 was also a concern, Puffalt pointed out it takes plenty of work to resolve and won’t happen quickly.
The city manager encouraged residents to read the news releases city hall puts out about because the city is pleased to report on the good — and not so good — things that occur. He also suggested that residents continue to contact city hall and council with concerns.
There were many comments that respondents gave about their most important issues, said Coun. Crystal Froese. What stood out for her was this was the first year where crime was mentioned regularly.
“So I think our citizens are really feeling the increase that we know we have in our city with petty crime and some safety issues,” she added.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Nov. 28.
