More people than expected respond to downtown Cape survey

Results of the DREAM Initiative survey of Cape Girardeau residents have turned out better than expected.

As of Friday afternoon, 413 responses had been mailed back to the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, according to Tim Arbeiter, the chamber's vice president for community development.

"That's pretty darn good," he said.

Paper surveys mailed to 3,000 randomly selected residents Nov. 3 asked questions ranging from what is already good about Cape Girardeau's downtown to whether more entertainment or other attractions are needed, what kind, and whether the city should add public restrooms.

Marla Mills, executive director of Old Town Cape, said she'd hoped to see about 300, or 10 percent, mailed back to the city. A 10 percent return on such surveys is typical. The Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce is collecting the responses and adding answers to an online database.

Not all the surveys can be used, however, because some people did not answer all the questions, Arbeiter said.

He notes that, the more paper surveys returned, the better analysts can assess the city's options for revitalizing downtown. Information gathered will be added to suggestions made during focus group sessions held earlier this year, as well as questionnaires given to Cape Girardeau visitors.

The DREAM survey appeared to hit a glitch this week when a Web site intended for the original 3,000 recipients was posted in an Internet chat room. The city intended to promote the Web site to the public after the paper survey's deadline this week. Arbeiter said responses returned by mail will serve as a backup for those entered online. As of Thursday, 112 responses were entered online.

"It's going to be good data to have. I don't know how long it's going to take for all the numbers to be crunched," he said.

All Cape Girardeau addresses on record, about 36,000, were put into a computer, which in turn selected the 3,000 homes for the original paper survey. according to Sharon Gotter, a project manager at Unicom-Arc, the St. Louis company running the survey for Cape Girardeau and Missouri's nine other DREAM Initiative cities.

Mills said the leak may not have a big impact on survey results.

"Because of the timing, toward the end of the deadline, and that it was released to a limited blogging group, I don't think it was a major breach," she said. "It doesn't in any way invalidate the responses we got. We don't anticipate having to disregard those, at any rate."

Besides, Mills said, "it shows people are really interested in their community, outside themselves. That's kind of neat."

Now, the survey is open to anyone. Mills sent a link out to everyone on the Old Town Cape mailing list Friday; the chamber will include a link in its weekly "Monday Morning Memo" e-mail.

"We'll have it out online for a few more weeks," Mills said.

The survey is online at www.downtowncapesurvey.org.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127