The City of Port St. Lucie is looking for a few good … opinions.
“This is the (City Council’s) annual event to get citizen input in addition to our city survey,” said Kate Parmalee, the city’s strategic initiatives director.
This Saturday, Feb. 23, the #IamPSL Citizen Summit will be at the Port St. Lucie Community Center, 2195 Airoso Blvd. At the event, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., city departments will have tables set up to give residents information, and to gather their opinions and ideas.
“We started this last year,” Parmalee said. “We attracted over 400 residents on a Tuesday evening.”
While that turnout is impressive by any measure, Parmelee said organizers decided that putting the event on a Saturday would give even more residents a chance to attend.
“It’s a drop-in meeting,” she explained. “It has a great town-hall feel. … It’s not a meeting, per se. It’s more of a walk-in event.”
There will be children’s activities, refreshments and giveaways. “At the end we give you a T-shirt,” Parmelee said. “You were there. You were a part of it.”
Also for the second year, the National Research Center is surveying citizens for the city. The survey-takers mailed copies of the survey to randomly-selected residents a couple weeks ago. On Feb. 19 the city opened the online version of the survey for anyone interested to take. People will be able to take the survey at this Saturday’s summit. “We’ll have laptops available for residents to take the survey right there,” Parmelee said.
People can also take the survey online at home or work until Tuesday, March 5.
Last year – the first time since 2009 that the city had surveyed residents – more than 5,000 took the survey, and it yielded some interesting results that have colored Port St. Lucie City Council discussions over the months.
For example, the survey found that 80 percent of respondents said they liked living in Port St. Lucie, but 57 percent thought the city had an image problem. That 23 percentage-point spread between residents saying life is good in Port St. Lucie and that it has a good overall image might have revealed something of a collective post-traumatic shyness stemming from failed economic-development failures going back a decade.
Mayor Gregory Oravec pointed out to St. Lucie Voice after last year’s survey results were released that while 57 instead of 80 percent responding that the city had a good overall image pointed to a problem, it was significant improvement over the 2009 survey. That year only 40 percent of respondents said the city had a good overall image.
“That was a great indicator to the council they were on the right track,” Parmelee said.
Among other changes over the decade, the City Council adopted a policy against taking out bonds to help fund economic-development projects again.
A perplexing result in last year’s survey results was only 25 percent said the city had positive employment opportunities. While the county’s not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in March last year was 4.6 percent, only 45 percent of survey respondents in February said they were positive about the overall economic health of Port St. Lucie.
The employment picture has improved more since then, but City Council members and others will doubtlessly look closely at whether the good economic news has translated to people feeling more optimistic.
The National Research Center gives the same survey to communities across the United States. Parmelee said that gives city officials a chance to analyze results in a broad context to understand what citizens are telling them through the surveys. She estimated citizens will need 15 to 30 minutes to complete them.
“It is a lengthy survey,” she said. “This is an in-depth look for our residents.”
Another eyebrow-raising response in last year’s survey concerned a sense of community. Only 46 percent of respondents said they were positive about PSL’s sense of community. Only 1 in 5 said they had attended public meetings, although 29 percent said they’ve watched them online or on television. Oravec said much of that could be due to the city’s original layout by General Development Corporation in the 1960s. Those older parts of Port St. Lucie, especially, don’t encourage much interaction with neighbors.
Parmelee said along with that problem, the survey and summit revealed some solutions the City Council has instituted.
“They also heard from the survey and summit that citizens wanted more special events,” she said. “Concerts and a need for the arts came up at the citizen summit.” The Port St. Lucie Civic Center started the free Friday Night Concert Series in response to the survey and citizens summit. Those outdoor concerts are on the third Friday of each month from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
To take the survey, visit www.cityofpsl.com.
