How’s life in Port St. Lucie? What needs fixing? What needs to be left just the way it is? The city is asking.
“This gets me very excited,” Mayor Greg Oravec said at the last regular meeting of the Port St. Lucie City Council. “I believe if you don’t measure it, you don’t care.”
At its meeting Jan. 8, the council added finishing touches to plans to get citizens’ thoughts about the city’s performance. The campaign kicks off with a survey that’ll go to 1,500 random addresses.
“We’ll be kicking off the citizen survey this month,” Kate Parmelee, strategic planning coordinator, said in an interview after the meeting. “It’s a five page survey.”
National Research Center will conduct the anonymous survey. City staff told the council that about 300 will likely be returned. The survey asks respondents to rate life in Port St. Lucie in areas such as traffic flow and parking, to quality of childhood, to adult education, among other things.
“They’ll keep sampling and surveying until they get an acceptable level of returns,” Parmalee said.
The aim is for 95 percent confidence that the sampled group represents the general opinions among residents. After the surveys are sent and returned, the city will put the survey online for anyone to take. That’ll probably be done by the middle of February.
“They do want to do the random (survey) first, and the online is a check,” Parmalee said.
Additionally, the council directed staff to place surveys at city buildings for folks to take voluntarily. The council has additional plans for getting folks’ thoughts.
“There’ll be a Facebook town hall (meeting),” Parmalee said.
The council is looking to get the information in time for its strategic planning/goal setting meeting at the McCarty Ranch Preserve on March 23. The meeting will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 12525 Range Line Road, Port St. Lucie.
“We’re going to have the most comprehensive picture we’ve ever had going into strategic planning,” Parmalee said. “This information helps our leaders make the best decisions possible for the community.”
Parmalee said developments in the surveying will be posted on the city’s Facebook Page, www.facebook.com/cityofpsl.