ETC Institute presents first statistically valid Fairfax City community survey; residents rate city services highly

ETC Institute presented the results of Fairfax City’s first statistically valid community survey at the council’s Oct. 7 work session, reporting 425 completed surveys, a margin of error of ±4.7 percentage points at 95% confidence, and broad resident satisfaction with city services.

"We found that residents have a very positive perception of the city of Fairfax," Jason Marrado, director of community research at ETC Institute, told Mayor Reid and the council. Marrado said more than 90% of respondents rated Fairfax as an "excellent or a good place to live and to raise and educate children," and that the city rated above U.S. averages in 46 of 47 comparison categories.

The survey used a mail-and-online random sample methodology. Marrado said the firm mailed 3,000 questionnaires to generate 425 completed surveys, which matched the firm’s target for a municipality of Fairfax’s size. He described respondent demographics as consistent with U.S. Census benchmarks the firm used to check representativeness.

Areas that stood out in ETC’s report included particularly high ratings for customer service provided by city employees (reported as 47 percentage points above the U.S. average on ETC’s comparative metric) and for the overall quality of city services (about 37 percentage points above the U.S. average). Public safety and parks and recreation also scored highly.

At the same time, the survey identified resident priorities for city leaders over the next two years: traffic flow and ease of getting around the city, and economic development. Within transportation, top priorities included how well traffic signals provide efficient traffic flow and availability of sidewalks. On planning and economic development, respondents prioritized redeveloping blighted or vacant commercial corridors and managing growth.

Council members asked follow-up questions on methodology and representation. Council Member Amos asked how many surveys were mailed; Marrado confirmed 3,000 were mailed to achieve the target number of responses. Marrado also explained that 37 additional, nonrandom online responses were received but excluded from the statistically valid sample; those results can be tabulated separately for comparison.

Council Member Peterson asked about differences between respondents and nonrespondents; Marrado said ETC ensures the survey sample reflects the city’s demographics by tracking age, race and ethnicity, gender and household income, and that cross-tabulations by demographic groups can be provided.

Multiple council members and the city manager said they intended to use the survey results in budget and strategic-planning discussions. City staff said the full report and maps would be posted to the city website the day after the presentation and that ETC would provide crosstab analyses and other follow-up data if the council requests them.

The survey also asked about possible changes to council term lengths: 55% of respondents said to keep the current two-year terms; 34% preferred staggered four-year terms and 11% preferred four-year terms with all seats elected at once.

ETC and city staff encouraged public feedback; Marrado said the city’s report will be a baseline the city can use for future trend analysis if it chooses to run similar surveys on a recurring schedule.