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National Civic League: local survey finds widespread dissatisfaction, but sample not scientific
Summary
A National Civic League representative told the Mount Vernon Charter Review Commission that a community survey and forums showed complaints about transparency and city performance but that the results were not a random, scientific sample and were concentrated in one ZIP code.
Doug Linkhart of the National Civic League told the Mount Vernon Charter Review Commission on June 4 that a community outreach effort produced hundreds of responses but is not a scientific sample.
Linkhart said the League distributed roughly 470 surveys and received about 314 responses. "This is not a random sample, and it's not scientific," he told the commission, noting that most respondents came from a single ZIP code, 10552. The written report and the commission packet contain the full survey results.
Why it matters: the League’s outreach informed the commission’s debate over whether to place charter changes on the November ballot. Commissioners said they wanted reliable community input before asking voters to decide on major structural changes to city government.
The survey and the public forums registered several repeating themes, Linkhart said: concerns about transparency and decision-making, requests for better public notice of meetings, dissatisfaction with some city departments, and calls for clearer oversight or stronger ethics enforcement. He said there was “general support” in forums for moving to a ward-based system from an all‑at‑large council, and notable interest in changing the chief financial officer role. On the question of a city manager, Linkhart said forum participants wanted more education before endorsing that kind of structural change.
Commissioners pressed the League representative on representativeness. Several members pointed out that a large share of responses came from ZIP code 10552 and that respondents skewed older, more educated and more likely to be homeowners than the city at large; Linkhart said that pattern is a common response bias for voluntary surveys and agreed to ask whether commission-member responses could be removed from the raw set. He repeated that the outreach was intended to be informative, not definitive: the commission will get additional public feedback if measures are placed on the ballot and a public information campaign follows.
The League also hosted one virtual forum whose recording the consultant said drew more than 500 views although only commission members and advisory‑committee members took part in the live session.
Ending: Commissioners said the survey results would be one input among many as they decide whether to send proposed charter changes to the ballot and what language to submit. The commission proceeded later in the meeting to vote on three proposed ballot items.
