During the Estes Park Town Board meeting Tuesday night, Public Information Officer Kate Rusch presented the 2018 Citizen Survey results. One key finding was that though governance ratings for Town services remained stable, public trust in the Town has declined. Only about one third of respondents submitted positive remarks on the overall direction of Estes Park and of their confidence in Town government.
The Town utilized the National Citizens Survey model for this survey. The Town also employed this survey model in 2016 and two other times in this decade. After the presentation, Mayor Todd Jirsa expressed concern over a decline in public trust from previous years.
“Since the survey cannot tell us precisely why, the most important thing we can do is to listen to our residents and continue to do our best to balance their needs,” he said. “As illustrated by current issues, our community is going through ‘growing pains’ of sorts, and finding balance can be a challenge since the needs of some residents conflict with the needs of others. The survey indicated residents feel the Town is providing high quality services overall and strong customer service, so it’s important that we keep up with this and then pay special attention to areas where we weren’t rated so highly, whether it’s specific services or broader community issues like land use, housing and mobility that contribute to the livability of Estes Park. I’m sure this is something the board will be discussing in more detail.”
A random sample of 1,600 households within in town limits were sent surveys to measure citizen reactions towards the Town Board’s strategic plan between late June and mid-August. Rusch said about 40 percent of the sample size returned surveys this year.
“That’s actually really good,” she said. “That’s actually a really high response rate for surveys like this. Personally, I was a little disappointed because our response rates have been quite a bit higher in past years. So it was down from 48 percent last time. Still, a good rate.”
The majority of residents gave the Town positive ratings for both the overall quality of life and to Estes as a place to live. Residents who took the survey reported to value both the natural environment and economy among other amenities.
Another takeaway was that Estes Park’s growing economy and identity as a vacation destination are having an impact on affordability and mobility. Rusch said the Estes Park economy ratings came out a mix of positive and negative. Ratings reached all time highs in 2018 for employment opportunities, a place to work and economic development opportunities in Estes Park and the downtown commercial area received higher marks this year than in the past.
“Only about one in 10 respondents awarded excellent or good ratings to the quality of housing options, availability of affordable quality housing and the cost of living,” she said. “These ratings were all lower than our comparison communities, and I should note that the cost of living evaluation’s been trending down since 2014, so for the past three surveys.”
Lessened mobility was also mentioned as a weak point for the Town in the survey presentation on Tuesday. Although Town services like snow removal received high ratings, respondents gave low ratings to mobility as it pertains to traveling by vehicle or bicycle, as well as traffic flow and parking.
According to the results, there were nine services for which respondents wanted to see an increase in services in. Those were broadband, street repairs, Town-sponsored workforce housing solutions, adding concrete sidewalks when streets are constructed, free year-round shuttle services, land use planning, traffic system improvements, on-street bike lanes and Town financial support for childcare initiatives.
Rusch told the board there was low participation among Hispanics at one percent. The survey data for those responses was weighted to seven percent in an effort to balance responses for that demographic as reported in the 2010 Census. Town of Estes Park Trustee Bangs called this statistic “shocking.”
“You can’t force anybody to take a survey but I do think it’s something that’s probably lacking with a full picture of what our community is really made up of and there’s probably some conclusions that are missing from our findings just based on survey data,” she said.
Results are available from the 2018 Citizen Survey are available on the town’s website.
