Poulsbo Parks & Rec to form task force for community needs assessment

The Poulsbo Parks & Recreation Commission voted to pursue a community needs assessment and asked staff to form a small task force to draft survey questions and a methodology.

A staff member summarized options, saying the commission could do the work in-house or hire a firm, but that hiring “costs money,” and recommended a task force to collect comparable examples and draft survey instruments. The staff member also emphasized best-practice sampling: “Community needs assessments when I was in grad school... were based on a random sampling of people who pay their water bills,” and cautioned against Facebook-only outreach because it produces biased results.

Commissioners agreed the task force should be small and time-limited (aiming for a draft in roughly three to four months) and include at least two commissioners plus community members. Commissioners discussed multiple outreach channels—phone, in-person open houses and mixed-mode surveys—to reach populations that may not respond to online-only approaches.

Next steps: staff will add the task force to the task-force sheet and circulate examples for the group to review; the commission will formalize membership and charge at a future meeting.