Post Falls surveys its citizens

POST FALLS - As Theresa Benforth watched her kids play at White Pine Park on Thursday, she pondered life in Post Falls.

"I really like living here," she said. "It's a great place to raise children, it's safe. I just wish there were more jobs and places to shop."

Her thoughts echo the results of a citizen survey the city had performed to learn about what's working and what's not in an array of areas, including services, growth, transportation, quality of life, recycling, appearance, economic sustainability and more.

"The good is that our residents love living in Post Falls," City Administrator Eric Keck said. "They rate our services highly and find our employees competent, responsive and courteous. They feel safe in Post Falls. And they really like the library and frequent our parks and recreation programs."

On the other hand, citizens who responded said they believe street maintenance is poor.

"They feel that our community's aesthetics are poor due to a lack of code enforcement, and that we need a better recycling program," Keck said.

The National Citizen Survey is a collaborative effort between the National Research Center and the International City/County Management Association. Results are used by city staffs for planning, resource allocation, improvements and policy making. Those who respond remain anonymous.

In the city with a population of about 26,000, a total of 1,200 random households were surveyed and 429 responses were received. Keck called the 36 percent response rate to the survey "very good.'

"I used to do survey research and anywhere between 25 and 40 percent is fantastic and significant," he said.

The city spent $9,900 on the mail survey.

Mayor Clay Larkin said he believes the survey says that citizens are OK with what's going on in the city overall, but also suggested areas to improve on.

"They raise some very valid concerns, including with code enforcement and cleaning up," Larkin said. "They're satisfied with their safety, but have concerns about environmental issues.

"I don't think there was a lot of negative. I'm OK with that."

More than 200 municipalities of varying sizes in 42 states have enrolled for the survey and a benchmark score of how Post Falls compared in each area to the other cities as a whole was provided.

Post Falls received high marks - and above benchmark scores - for library services, safety, air quality, a place to retire, garbage collection, animal control, availability of affordable quality housing, sewer/water services, ease of bike and car travel and overall impression of city employees.

Areas that had similar scores to the benchmark included overall quality of life, a place to raise kids, whether they plan to stay in the city for the next five years, availability of affordable quality health care and public trust in the city government.

Twenty-three percent believe the overall quality of life is excellent and 51 percent believe it's good.

Ten percent believe the value of their services for the taxes paid is excellent and 38 percent believe it's good. Six percent believe the city does an excellent job of listening to citizens and 34 percent say it does a good job. Both are areas Keck said he'd like to see improved.

However, low marks were given to growth, job opportunities, sense of community, street repairs and lighting, recycling, shopping opportunities, cleanliness, overall appearance, cultural opportunities and preserving open space. All were below the benchmark.

"Many residents are concerned that we're growing too fast," Keck said.

Economic sustainability, which includes job and shopping opportunities and places to work, is a glaring concern, Keck said, because all those areas only received 10 percent to 26 percent total as being either excellent or good.

"We have (the area of Cabela's and Wal-Mart) coming along, but we just aren't a shopping Mecca," he said.

Just 41 percent rated street repairs as either excellent or good.

"We're putting more money toward it, but we recognize that we're still behind," Keck said.

The city has already started to use the results for change. At last week's council meeting, the idea of adding another employee for code enforcement didn't win support due to a tight budget, but community cleanup days and adding teeth to such laws did.

"I think we can make improvements, even in a low budget year," Keck said. "But we do need to get people to have more pride in their property. It's going to take a communitywide effort, not from just a few, to change the aesthetics."

Keck said the survey also brought on questions such as the types of jobs citizens are looking for. He said he'd like to hold public open houses to reach out more to citizens and answer such questions.

"We need to do more research on job creation, so we can gear our efforts accordingly," Keck said.

Earlier, the city held a development forum to gain feedback from contractors and developers.

Keck will make a presentation to the City Council on the survey on Tuesday night. Survey results will be posted at www.postfallsidaho.org next week.