The city of Siloam Springs received feedback from more than 900 people during a residential survey conducted late last year. Results were recently published by the city.
The 14-page survey ran from early October to late November. It was primarily online with a notification that went out in utility bills to residential customers. Some were mailed to people who requested it and, additionally, Siloam Springs communications manager Holland Hayden said she, "went through the survey over the phone with a few people who didn't have internet access."
"The last time the city did a survey, from what I can find anyway, was August of 2006," Hayden said. "So it was time to get information on how the city is performing."
Results will be used as a baseline for future surveys and also be factored in as the city continues to explore ways to improve the overall quality of life for Siloam Springs residents. City administrator Phillip Patterson said he was pleased with the "very positive" results.
"We wanted to get an idea of the opinions of the public on various aspects of the city operations," Patterson said. "In order to see what needs improvement, we need to establish a baseline opinion from residents."
The survey asked people to rate Siloam Springs on everything from a place to live, work, retire and the overall quality of life to the city's overall appearance, cleanliness and quality of new development. There also were questions about housing options, shopping opportunities, recreational and educational opportunities as well as the affordability of quality food, child care and housing.
On each question, respondents had four choices of how to answer: excellent, good, fair or poor. Answers like "don't know" or "not applicable" were removed from the matrix and results were recalculated.
For instance, Siloam Springs as "a place to live," 41.5 percent (379) answered "excellent," 48.8 percent (446) answered "good," 8.5 percent (78) answered "fair" and 1.2 percent (11) answered "poor."
On a question about "openness and acceptance of the community toward people of diverse backgrounds," 13.1 percent said it was "excellent" while 45.4 percent responded "good," 29.9 percent answered "fair" and 11.5 percent answered "poor."
There was a mixed bag of results on "variety of housing options" with 8.7 percent responding "excellent," 39.4 percent answering "good," 35.6 percent answering "fair" and 16.3 percent answering "poor." That means a combined 458 people responded "fair" or "poor," while 425 responded "excellent" or "good."
A bigger split in responses came on a question about "shopping opportunities" with a combined 580 responding "excellent" or "good" and 330 checking the box for either "fair" or "poor."
"Educational opportunities" was positive with nearly 88 percent answering "excellent" or "good" against 22 percent replying either "fair" or "poor."
City staff will continue to dissect the numbers before coming up with a game plan of initiatives for ways to improve areas of deficiency.
"There will likely be some (initiatives)," Patterson said. "But we'll be studying them and deciding how best to proceed to make improvements in certain areas, some of which aren't quick fixes."
Complete results from the residential survey can be found at http://siloamsprings.com/DocumentCenter/View/3186.
General News on 03/11/2018