Milpitas survey: 86% of residents satisfied, housing costs and road conditions remain top concerns

Milpitas City Council on Tuesday received results of the citywide community engagement survey showing 86% of respondents said they were satisfied with quality of life in Milpitas, while a large majority identified rising housing costs and cost of living as serious problems.

The presentation, delivered by Kurt Baylo of FM3 Research, summarized responses from about 647 interviews with an overall margin of sampling error of about ±4%: "86% of the people who took this survey...said they're satisfied with the quality of life in Milpitas," Baylo said during the presentation. He advised caution in reading small year-to-year shifts because they can be within the survey's margin of error.

The survey found broad approval of local police and fire services (82% and 92% approval respectively) and high satisfaction with emergency response and sewer systems, but flagged two areas where resident importance outpaced satisfaction: street paving/repair and policies to support affordable housing. "Paving and repairing of streets and roads" was called out as a notable outlier: more than 90% of respondents said it is extremely or very important while roughly 37% said they were dissatisfied with performance in that area, Baylo said.

Why it matters: City staff told council the survey is used annually to inform budget priorities and policy decisions. Assistant City Manager Matt Cano said results would be incorporated into the upcoming budget discussions and could shape outreach or program changes. City Manager Ned Thomas and several council members urged staff to treat the results as both budget guidance and a source of policy direction.

Council questions and clarifications focused on methodology and interpretation. Council member Evelyn Chua pressed Baylo on the $100 "budget allocation" exercise presented in the survey (a hypothetical way to gauge priorities), asking how to reconcile that result with actual general-fund allocations. Baylo clarified that the $100 exercise reflected respondents' relative priorities, not the city's actual budget: "We're not asking them to actually decide your budget. We're asking them to give that so you can get relative priorities," he said.

Council members asked about survey language access and sample composition. Baylo said the survey was offered in English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese and used random-address sampling and follow-up phone calls, texts and postcards to reach respondents. He noted some items were asked only of half the sample (margin of error ~6% for those questions).

Several council members and staff highlighted follow-up uses. Assistant City Manager Cano and the city manager said staff will bring specific follow-ups to the council where warranted — for example, the presentation flagged streets and affordable housing as areas for closer attention. Human Resources Director Kelly Parmalee will present recruitment and hiring materials to the council in a future meeting, and staff said they will use the survey to refine outreach and program messaging.

Public comment: Voltaire Montemayor of Milpitas thanked the council and said he was comfortable living in Milpitas and supportive of continuing city services; his remarks were given during the public forum that followed the presentation.

Next steps: Staff will use the report in upcoming budget discussions and return with any recommended actions tied to survey findings, including possible outreach on housing, road maintenance priorities and program awareness.