People are generally pleased with their quality of life and services provided by the Town of Olds, a recent survey found.
That was the conclusion drawn by Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs during a survey conducted in which the company conducted interviews with 300 people between May 24 and June 3.
“Overall, this is a very strong baseline,” Jamie Duncan, associate vice-president of Ipsos-Reid, told town councillors during the Sept. 12 meeting.
There are many benefits to such a survey for a municipality, Duncan said, including the ability to see a broad spectrum of opinions and to get baseline data to measure certain areas of a municipality's performance.
In Olds' case, 22 per cent of those surveyed identified transportation as their number 1 issue, compared to 28 per cent of those that identify it as their number 1 issue in other communities across Canada where the survey is also done.
Municipal government services were identified by 14 per cent of Olds residents surveyed as the top issue facing the town. A total of 25 per cent of those surveyed either didn't know what their top issue would be or didn't identify a specific one.
Duncan told councillors even though 81 per cent of those surveyed were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with communication from the town, more can always be done to improve that score even more.
A total of 74 per cent of survey respondents said they get value for their tax dollars while 24 per cent were not happy with the value they receive from their taxes. Duncan said administration's next task would be to find out what is driving those perceptions, as that was not asked. A total of 97 per cent of survey respondents classified quality of life in Olds as good.
Asked by councillors when a review of the numbers might be conducted, Duncan said that depends on a municipality's needs – and council's wishes. Some do it on an annual basis. Other smaller municipalities comparable in population to Olds revisit the results every three years, he said.
In an interview, Duncan said quality of life and service delivery are two areas that respondents usually key on that tell municipal administration how staff is doing. In both those areas, the town scored well.
“From a metrics standpoint, there are some key overall performance areas: the first one is around quality of life and whether or not people are happy living in their communities. Generally, it's a reflection on how well local government is doing in terms of design and ensuring that services are being sent out to residents. … The other one relates to service delivery and again, Town of Olds residents are saying they are satisfied with that,” he said.
Mayor Judy Dahl said she was pleased that citizens took the time to share their views about the town and said that information would be a great benefit to administration.
“Council will sit with administration and discuss the results and my hope would be that since the Town of Olds now knows that our website use is nine points higher than other municipalities, we do have a high (percentage) for website use. We will be sure to post this on our website so that people can see our successes,” she said.
