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Consultant: Palm Beach Gardens residents rate city services highly; mobility and housing top priorities
Summary
ETC Institute presented results from a 512‑respondent 2026 citizen survey showing 81% of Palm Beach Gardens respondents satisfied with overall city services. Top priorities identified were mobility/infrastructure and workforce/affordable‑housing initiatives; staff will post the full results online and use them to guide program priorities.
The City Council heard a presentation of the 2026 citizen survey results on the city’s performance and priorities.
Jason Mirado, vice president and director of community research at ETC Institute, said the city received 512 completed surveys, giving the study a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. "That means the results are statistically valid for this size of city," he said, summarizing the methodology and sample frame.
Mirado said the survey showed high resident satisfaction across a broad set of services: "Eighty‑one percent of respondents are very satisfied or satisfied with the overall quality of city services," he said, and noted similarly strong ratings for fire, police, parks and recreation, and customer service. Mirado added that residents ranked mobility, infrastructure and connectivity improvements as the top priorities, followed by workforce and affordable‑housing initiatives.
Council members asked several follow‑up questions about how to interpret chart categories. Mirado clarified that a "neutral" response corresponds to the midpoint on the five‑point scale and indicates an opinion of "meeting expectations," not an absence of opinion. He also said spring is an effective time to run the survey and that mixing mail and online collection helps reduce bias from seasonal residents.
The presentation compared Palm Beach Gardens to benchmarks from Florida and national surveys; Mirado said the city's satisfaction ratings exceed state and national averages on the eight services shown. He also told council the city’s preferred channels for resident communications are the Palm Beach Gardens Signature City magazine, the city website and social media.
City staff said the presentation slides and charts will be posted online. The council did not take action on the presentation itself; staff and council members said they will use the survey findings to inform budget and program priorities ahead of the formal budget hearings.
