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Citywide survey: residents prioritize beautification, parks, safety and roads, consultant says
Summary
OnPoint Insights presented results from a 1,456-response West Valley City citizen survey showing residents rate city direction mostly positive but place high priority on beautification, parks and open space, safety/policing presence, and street infrastructure; dashboard tools allow district and demographic filtering to guide prioritization.
Ron Gailey, owner of OnPoint Insights, presented the results of a city-run citizen survey to the council, saying the firm received 1,456 complete responses and created an interactive dashboard for council and staff use.
Gailey said the sample yielded a margin of error near ±2 percent after weighting for race and district distribution, and that staff invited participation via email lists drawn from utility-billing records. The dashboard allows staff and council to filter responses by district, age, tenure in the city, and renter/owner status.
Key findings Gailey highlighted included:
- Response volume and representativeness: 1,456 completed surveys with reasonable demographic spread; the sample was weighted to match the city's race distribution. - City direction and satisfaction: Most respondents said the city is staying the same or improving and that the city is generally headed in the right direction; however, West Valley scored lower than peers on "refer a friend" benchmarks. - Top priorities: City beautification and cleanliness emerged as the single highest priority in both open comments and top-4 prioritization. Parks and open spaces, trails, and sidewalk maintenance also ranked highly; safety and crime prevention and street infrastructure were important concerns in open responses. - Service-contact ratings: About 66% of respondents reported contact with city departments in the prior six months (utility billing, police, code enforcement); ratings varied by department with generally positive scores for fire and EMS.
Gailey demonstrated how the dashboard groups and codes open-ended comments and warned council members that reading raw comments can be emotionally jarring. He encouraged staff to use the top-10 priorities output to guide near-term focus and suggested targeted follow-up surveys for deep dives on specific topics.
Council members asked about response rates relative to city population and Gailey said large cities commonly achieve 4–5% response rates, while small cities can get much higher; he said West Valley's sample was strong for analysis and that additional targeted surveys could be designed to probe specific issues further.
