City receives Polco/NCS survey: safety and customer service rate well; economy and health access lag

Polco director Jason Neumeier presented the results of the city’s March–April 2025 National Community Survey (NCS), telling the council that the random-sample mail survey produced 390 completed responses (12% response rate, margin of error ±5%). Kelsey Walker, the city’s communications manager, said the survey will help guide the Bartlesville Next strategic plan and upcoming staff planning retreat.

Neumeier summarized the top findings: residents gave high marks to personal and neighborhood safety and to the customer service provided by city employees, while ratings for overall economic vitality, access to affordable quality health care and mental-health services trailed national benchmarks. On locally unique items the report showed strong resident support for securing long-term water supplies and for prioritizing reductions in homelessness, public safety and street improvements.

Neumeier also described methodology: a 3,500-address probability sample with follow-up mailings, an optional open link that received 481 additional responses, and weighted results aligned to recent Census and ACS demographic targets to improve representativeness. Councilmembers asked about the weighting and oversampling of multifamily units; Polco said multifamily addresses were oversampled at roughly a 5-to-3 ratio to ensure younger and renter populations were represented and that weighting aligns sample demographics to the target population.

Staff said the full report and an interactive dashboard will be posted for public use and that survey results will inform prioritization and budgeting discussions at the council retreat.