Midwest City survey: residents rate public safety highly; appearance, streets and code enforcement flagged for improvement

Josh Ryan, a Midwest City staff member, introduced results of a citizen satisfaction survey conducted for the city by ETC Institute and presented to the City Council on Jan. 28, 2025. Robert Haycock, senior project manager with ETC Institute, led the presentation and highlighted comparative benchmarks.

“Residents have a very positive perception of the city. They feel very satisfied, especially with public safety,” Haycock said. ETC reported 517 completed responses to the hybrid mail/online survey, producing a margin of error of about plus-or-minus 4.3 percentage points. The survey was conducted in late September and early October of the prior year.

The firm’s topline findings showed notably high satisfaction with public safety: ETC reported combined “very satisfied”/“somewhat satisfied” levels near 87% for police services and about 92% for fire protection; EMS quality was reported at roughly 90%. Trash and garbage collection scored about 90% satisfaction. At the same time, the presentation identified recurring concerns: the city’s overall appearance, condition of streets and enforcement of city codes and ordinances drew larger neutral or dissatisfied shares than other services.

Haycock urged attention to the large share of respondents who selected neutral on some questions. “That neutral just as a neutral. I wouldn't combine it with the positives or... the negatives,” he said when council members asked how to interpret the middle response on the five-point scales.

Council members pressed for methodology details. Haycock said the sample design used Census data to target households and that the city exceeded its target of 500 returns (517 total). He explained the firm excludes “don’t know” responses from the percentage calculations when the option was offered, and that ETC benchmarks Midwest City’s results against a Plains-region composite and a national dataset collected by the firm.

Council discussion touched on specific findings and next steps. Haycock and Josh Ryan identified priority areas using ETC’s importance-satisfaction analysis: streets and pavement, building maintenance and “enforcement of city codes and ordinances” ranked as top priorities for follow-up. Haycock also flagged disaster preparedness/public education and perceived safety in parks and trails as areas with elevated neutral or dissatisfied responses.

Police Chief Wibley briefly addressed council questions about local crime trends after Haycock noted high satisfaction with police services; Wibley said crime in the relevant patrol area has decreased from 2022 to the present. City staff said they will use the survey to guide budget priorities and communications, and that an executive summary and staff response will be emailed to council members. No formal council action or vote was taken on the presentation.

City staff said some survey results will be incorporated into the upcoming budget process and into targeted outreach to reduce the number of residents reporting neutral or “don’t know” responses in specific service areas.