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Council hears plan for biennial community attitude survey, asked to rank priorities
Summary
Survey researcher Marty Safferstein briefed Powell council on the city’s upcoming biennial community attitude survey, asked members to rate draft questions (high/medium/low), and discussed sampling and timing; council members raised concerns about survey fatigue and timing relative to goal-setting and the 2026 budget cycle.
Marty Safferstein, the presenter for the city’s biennial community attitude survey, told Powell City Council that this will be the ninth bivariate survey the city has conducted dating back to 2008 and asked council members to review a draft questionnaire and mark each question’s priority (high, medium or low).
Safferstein said the planned approach splits the sample between 200 phone interviews and 200 online surveys, weighted to Census demographics, and that the target population is all adults for whom the city has a phone number or an email address. He recommended keeping the questionnaire shorter to preserve data quality and said the team expects to conduct field interviews in spring; staff will pretest the instrument after council feedback.
Council members expressed concerns about survey fatigue because other surveys have reached residents recently. Christina Drummond and other members asked whether the city was under any contractual timeline to field the survey now or whether it could be delayed into the second quarter to avoid overlapping with other outreach. Tom Counts noted the council would like survey results before the 2026 goal-setting session so the data can inform budget and priority-setting.
Safferstein suggested council members individually mark their priorities on the paper questionnaires and return them anonymously to staff; Anna (city communications) will help promote the survey and provide caller ID for phone outreach. Council and staff discussed timing tradeoffs: spring yields higher response rates than summer, but messaging should emphasize how prior survey results led to decisions to encourage participation.
No formal council action was taken; staff will compile council question-priority inputs and return with a finalized questionnaire and field schedule.
