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City staff proposes new resident-survey tool after 2024 data anomalies; council asks questions about bots, cost
Summary
City budget staff and data analysts told the Lewisville City Council on Jan. 27 that they intend to replace the city’s opt‑in resident survey with a statistically weighted targeted‑ad survey after staff identified likely manipulated responses in 2024.
City budget staff and data analysts described plans to replace the city’s opt‑in resident satisfaction survey with a targeted, statistically weighted survey tool to improve representativeness and to guard against manipulation.
Ashley Carlisle, Budget Manager, and James Hunke presented findings drawn from the city’s 2024 resident satisfaction survey and proposed using a third‑party platform (presented as Zen City) that deploys targeted digital ads, collects responses and weights results to reflect Census/ACS demographics. Presenters told council staff found a clear statistical anomaly in 2024 — a concentrated set of roughly 100 additional responses that were repetitively negative and then showed high attrition when demographic and follow‑up items were asked — which the presenters said distorted year‑to‑year trends.
Staff described the platform’s features: targeted ads across social media and other apps, a short questionnaire (about five minutes), live dashboards, automated demographic weighting to match the city population, and an AI‑assisted flagging system to identify suspicious or duplicate responses. Staff recommended a launch in March 2025 with a report due in May 2025 and an option to run a six‑month follow‑up in fall 2025.
Councilmembers asked technical and security questions. They asked whether the platform can detect multiple entries and bot farms; presenters said the vendor’s algorithm flags suspicious patterns and that staff will review and can exclude suspect responses. Council members asked how non‑social‑media residents would be reached; staff said targeting can include multiple apps and platforms and noted Census data shows high internet use even among older residents. On branding and legitimacy, staff said the survey communications would carry the City of Lewisville brand and the city would verify the survey URL; the presenter said staff would prepare example screenshots and communications to reduce the risk of spoofed surveys.
On cost, staff said there is an additional vendor fee but the city can absorb it in this year’s budget; a precise contract amount was not disclosed at the Jan. 27 presentation. The presenters emphasized that the city would continue to use standardized questions to allow trend analysis and would reserve several custom questions for topical issues such as Business 121.
No formal council vote occurred on Jan. 27. Staff indicated they would finalize the questionnaire and work with the vendor to launch in March if council directs.
