Last Wednesday Mayor Richard Bailey held a town hall meeting to discuss the results of his latest online public opinion survey, the 2017 Coronado Community Survey. The meeting was held in the Coronado Historical Association’s lecture hall and close to 90 people attended.
Bailey held the community meeting to highlight and expound on some of the survey results, and to solicit more feedback from the community.
The survey had asked people to weigh in on range of hot button issues — traffic safety, bridge suicides, short-term rentals, tourism and leaf blowers. The results are posted on his Facebook page.
Over 1,100 people responded to the survey. The demographics represented a good cross-section of the community. Nine out of ten were full-time residents. The largest age group represented was the 46-65 range, nearly matching the city’s median age of 56. Almost eighty percent were from the village, 9% were from the Cays, 8% from the Shores, and the remainder “other.”
Bailey asked where people lived to pinpoint issues that were specific to certain areas. For example, areas of the city where traffic enforcement was perceived as a problem. Two-thirds were satisfied with enforcement in their neighborhoods. However the figured dropped to less than half when respondents were asked about traffic enforcement for the city in general, suggesting wide concern for traffic safety in the stretch of road between the bridge and Orange Avenue.
The same was true of jet noise. “The results matched perfectly where people lived,” Bailey said. The further people lived away from Navy’s flight zone, the less people were bothered by the noise.
The town hall setting also gave Bailey the chance to point out some of the challenges leaders face in addressing people’s concerns. For example, respondents gave high marks, four and five stars to Coronado’s beaches, parks, library, golf course and tennis center. On the other hand, city streets were rated near the bottom.
After seeing the results, Bailey said that he wished that he had asked if people were satisfied with road conditions minus Routes 75 and 282. Both are state highways controlled by Caltrans. “I think the number would have been a lot higher,” Bailey said.
“I know for a fact how hard our public service department works to address issues on city roads and how hard they work to get approval from Caltrans to fix their roads.”
This was the third online survey Bailey had conducted. He did one in 2013 and one in 2015. He paid for all three. “No tax dollars or city staff time was involved,” he pointed out.
He started doing the surveys because he wanted to “find out what the pulse of the community was and to give residents who wouldn’t otherwise participate by e-mailing or attending city council meetings an opportunity to voice their views.”
“By making public participation easier, it was my hope that a broader audience would get involved and that is what ended up happening.”
He cautioned that the survey was “by no means the end all and be all of public opinion. It’s just another way for people to share their thoughts.”
He also stressed that it was not a scientific survey, where respondents are chosen at random. Results from these are considered more valid than ones where people self-select.
Still, Bailey’s survey does something that the scientific studies the city conducts from time to time don’t. “It asks actionable questions,” Bailey said.
A typical city survey will ask “Do you like living in Coronado? And what do you know, 90% say yes, but what about the 10% who says no?” Bailey asked. “They never ask follow-up questions to find out why the 10% are dissatisfied.” By asking a series of issue specific questions, Bailey hopes to drill down to the why.
To watch a video of the Town Hall Meeting from Mayor Bailey’s Facebook page, click HERE.
