Public Opinion Panel Offers Feedback on City Services

Last year, we introduced the Public Opinion Panel as a way for the city to quickly gather feedback from stakeholders throughout the year.

(Haven’t signed up? Jump over to northlibertyiowa.org/pop and fill out a short survey of demographic questions. That’s it.)

As part of the city’s annual budget process, we presented POP members with some broad service categories and, for each category, asked them to select from three options:

• trim if the level of service currently provided is higher than they needed
• maintain if the level of service currently provided meets their needs
• increase if the level of service currently provided is less than they needed

About 82 percent of the panel replied to the survey and, while the survey results aren’t scientifically valid, they do help provide insights into the needs of the community.

Community and economic development services, including arts, entertainment and strategic community planning, were the highest rated for an increases. Broadcasts of meetings and information was the highest rated category for a  trim. The report, which was provided to city administration staff and elected officials, can be viewed, downloaded or printed here.

Comparing respondent demographics with 2015 Special Census demographics, results significantly overrepresents households with children (53.0% of respondents vs. 39.4% per Census data), slightly overrepresents households with seniors (12.6% vs. 10.3%), significantly overrepresents owner-occupied households (90.4% vs. 69.4%), and significantly underrepresents non-whites (1.3% vs. 9.9%).