Jackson community survey provided helpful information

The board of aldermen was presented the final report of the community survey by ETC Institute at a recent meeting. The ETC Institute conducted the scientific survey of Jackson residents during the month of May. I would like to thank all citizens who took their time to fill out this survey. A better than 20 percent response rate is fantastic for a survey of this nature. This proves our citizens are engaged in our community and desire to assist the leadership to improve Jackson. The survey respondents reflected the demographic and geography spread of the city to further enhance its accuracy as being reflective of our population.

I would encourage you to review the survey results by going to www.jacksonmo.org/survey17. The final report allows you to review all the questions and the answers provided by the respondents. It also provides information on satisfaction levels, retail business interests, priorities and comparisons to other cities' surveys through ETC Institute benchmarking methodology.

Going forward, it is very important to use the results to provide guidance to the city staff, the Jackson Community Outreach Board and Park Boards and Board of Aldermen. This survey will also provide a base for future surveys to measure changes in attitudes over time.

In my view, one of the most important takeaways of the survey are the areas identified as needing improvement. Another key takeaway of the survey is the rating of the priorities of the City of Jackson. The board of aldermen and city staff develop, review and update priorities at a yearly retreat. Through the survey analysis, the ETC Institute is able to review those priorities and indicate those that are the most important and are most desired for action. This is accomplished by cross-referencing the highest ranked priorities against the level of satisfaction.

Some of areas that the City of Jackson will be emphasizing for future study and action:

• Curbside recycling. I was surprised how high this ranked in importance, but it is a natural extension of the high level of satisfaction with the present centralized recycling center.
• New swimming pool. Our present swimming pool is more than 40 years old. It is time to study what Jackson's options are to replace, or improve our present facility.
• Improving traffic flow. The roundabout has been a great improvement to the city's traffic flow; now we need to look to the next two to three key areas for improvement.
• Improvement of streets. Our annual $500,000 concrete and asphalt street improvement program addresses the most pressing of our street problems. We need to continue to look for opportunities to expand this program and identify the areas for major repair or upgrades.
• Improvements of police patrols. Safety is a major reason Jackson is ranked as a great placed to live, raise children and work. The board of aldermen will be conducting a review of our police patrols as well as our police station facility needs. Our citizens understand the police and fire department are constantly challenged to keep our city safe. We must be diligent to support these departments with resources required to keep our city safe
• Retail business. The retail section of the survey provides valuable information on the interests of the residents for new retail businesses and how they shop. The information will be used to guide our recruitment of new retailers. Certainly, additional grocery stores and restaurants were high priority for most residents.

Dwain Hahs serves as mayor of the city of Jackson. He can be reached at mayorhahs@jacksonmo.org.