The city has finally released the telephone survey results from Godbe Research which was conducted from June 11 to June 16, 2014. Godbe surveyed 504 Davis registered voters, with a 20-minute survey conducted in consultation with city staff.
Much has been made out of the polling on the parcel taxes, which continues to inform current and future city strategy on the timing and amount of the city’s parcel tax policy.
However, there is new information that we wish to focus on. The general level of citizen satisfaction remains high, but it has slipped since the city last conducted such a poll back in 2007. In 2007, 93.7% reported that they are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied, and now that level is still high – 84% of respondents, but that represents a decrease of 9.6%. Staff writes, “Although the overall level remains high, the decline is likely due in part to the economic downturn that occurred between surveys.”
From our standpoint, however, we will focus on two specific findings.
First, the source of information has changed and changed rather dramatically. In 2007, the Vanguard was a fledgling website, having just been launched in 2006. The Davis Enterprise represented the source of a large plurality of residents getting their information. 48.8% of residents got their information from the Enterprise compared to 26% for the internet and Davis website, only 2.5% got their information from the Sacramento Bee, and social media was a non-factor, not even asked.
That has changed, as the Davis Enterprise remains the top plurality but their reach has shrunk by nearly one-third, and now only 34.7% people get their source of information from the Enterprise compared to the Internet/Davis website now reaching 29.5%.
While they do not mention the Vanguard by name, the influence of the Vanguard is seen quite clearly here. Readership even over the summer still reached over 4000 unique views during the week for the Vanguard.
Perhaps the interesting factor is that the Sacramento Bee has a larger readership in Davis than the Enterprise, but the Enterprise is where far more people get their news on the city. Social media has not become a large source for city information.
From a city standpoint, one of the more interesting findings is public perception of the most important issues. The long drawn out water process has pushed the issue of water to the top of the list. What is perhaps interesting is that the respondents seem split on the bigger issue that pertains to water, with quality edging out cost by a 17 to 13 percent margin.
In the last year and a half, we have seen two water measures – both of which passed. The first authorized the city to build a surface water plant, ostensibly addressing the water quality issue. The second rescinded the water rates, addressing the water rate issue.
The budget only ranked third on the list at 8.9% which is interesting because the budget and the city’s lack of revenue represent by far the greatest long-term challenge and the next year and a half will see a number of initiatives address the city budget. We have already seen the sales tax, we will also see the parcel tax and perhaps several Measure R votes on innovation parks – Nishi, Mace, and the Davis Innovation Center (Northwest Quadrant).
This dovetails well with our call to arms from the weekend, arguing that the public really lacks the knowledge about the city’s fiscal condition.
The fourth big issue is the lack of affordable housing – an issue that also taps into more traditional growth and development and land use issues.
However, what we have seen in the last seven years is a sea-change in the political landscape in Davis. In 2007, at the time the Vanguard was first starting, we saw traditional issues dominating – growth and development at 34% and lack of affordable housing at 20%.
Those issue have been replaced by water and budgetary concerns.
As we drill down, however, we see that while budget and the economy ranks third with 8.9%, there are other related issues that might push it up on the screen – taxes at 4.2%, economic development at 3.5%, roads at 1%, employee salaries and benefits at 1%. These are not enough to push the issue of the budget and economy over water, but it certainly shows it is a considerable concern.
What isn’t a huge concern is crime and public safety at 2.7%, but that issue was not even on the radar of the public in 2007.
The polling, therefore, shows the emergence of new issues replacing growth and development and housing, which dominated seven years ago, but it also shows again the need for public engagement on the budget issues, which represent again the biggest long-term challenge.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
We all know that public money can’t be used for political purposes. Seems clear.
The law does allow surveys of this sort to inform elected leaders and city policy.
What I still don’t get is how it is allowed for surveys only of registered voters. If an elected body wants to know how their city feels they could survey all residents. When they only want to measure the views of registered voters — it tells me that it is really just a political expenditure under the guise of “information gathering”.
Matt Rexroad
662-5184
If the 504 samples include people that are not registered voters, would you have a problem if the presentation has a sub graph showing only the responds from registered voters? For the non-registered voter samples, what persons should the city include or exclude?
* To get the phone numbers of non-registered voters, the city could broadcast the intent to have this kind of survey, and have people register as stakeholders.
Is there a transcript of the phone survey used by Godbe Research available for review? Also, is there a statistical report associated with this survey that outlines the model and specific reasoning used to arrive at both a sampling size which is .75% of the total population of Davis and 1.3% of the registered voter population of Davis (using 2010 census count), questions and the order in which they they asked, the type of response method utilized, and the margin of error calculated into survey?
Maybe licensed drivers then? “All” would include children and I really don’t think that’s wise, for obvious reasons. But I agree “registered voters” is certainly telling Matt!
The city could poll all residents, licensed drivers I don’t think they have access to.
The Enterprise just doesn’t get it sometimes. Their recent move requiring FB accounts in order to post on their comment section turned away many readers and a resulting downturn in the number of posts. I still read the Enterprise to stay on top of local news and what not, but hey the Vanguard is free even though I personally don’t care for the liberal spin put on many of the articles.
I tend to agree, though I will note that their move happened after the poll took place.
BP, now that you have completed your helping your two children move their places of residence, do you think you will have time to start submitting articles about national issues, so that the “off topic” problem can be defused?
On the subject of submitted articles to broaden the discussion, the Moderator received the following e-mail suggestion from a Vanguard reader and passed it on to the Editorial Board. It is a very good and thoughtful suggestion, but to my thinking the implementation method that the commenter outlines needs work. What I suggest as an alternative is that the descibed kind of story/article submission start by introducing the topic (political dysfunction in the example case) and then follow that introduction with excerpts from the linked article that explore/illuminate the topic (in the example case Francis Fukuyama’s America In Decay) and links the topic and the article to what we are experiencing in Davis.
We have tried to build the inventory of article submitters. We are reaching out to you to take you up on your offer to submit articles. Dan Carson has stepped to the plate. The school board candidates have stepped up. Tia Will and Jeff Boone have submitted some of the most commented on articles in the Vanguard’s history. This represents an opportunity to build on that.
Again, this quoted comment above is indicative of a couple of points.
One – some people don’t completely understand the spirit and purpose of a blog. Think of it as a “beautiful mess”. A virtual town hall meeting is something else. And I think the VG might want to explore that as a separate feature. There are other nifty trends in the blogosphere that should also be considered. For example, go to http://www.reddit.com and search for “ask me anything”. Even the President did a session or two (although it was probably his handlers answering the questions).
Two – I see echos of Virginia Postrel’s “dynamist” versus “stasis” actors in these types of comments, and there is an ideological bent connection too. I think some people are made anxious around self-managing systems and naturally desire more top-down order and control. But often their anxiety is only their lack of understanding of the thing, or their lack of system thinking (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking) about the thing.
Blogs have evolved in their design to provide collaborative and cooperative self-managing. There is certainly still need for moderation, but features like “like” voting, and “report as abusive” buttons help prevent the need to cede so much authority to a central figure and risk censorship.
When visiting New York for pleasure I like to stay in hotels close to Times Square. While in the hotel it is quiet and orderly. Everyone knows not to get boisterous and argumentative. Someone stepping outside the bounds of defined behavior requirements will be dealt with by hotel staff, or by law enforcement if needed.
But step outside the entry and everything is a bit chaotic. There are people coming and going laughing, honking, shouting, arguing, running, walking, driving… business is getting done. Basically, it is a beautiful mess.
Some people hate that type if thing. They don’t go to New York. And if they do, they generally would stay out of Times Square or other chaotic areas.
But my advice to them is to try it and they will probably get used to it and learn to like it at least for a visit every now and then. But if they succeed in changing it to satiate their more stasis desires and calm their natural anxieties over a perceived lack of order, it will ruin it for most everyone else.
I think knowing how people are going to vote is beneficial to everyone overall because it reduces or eliminates surprises. Knowing how people feel would let us and the council see the result if there is a vote. This could save time and money, and eliminate arguments like, “I don’t believe that is the majority view, let’s put it on a ballot.”
I think the city of Davis website can make it possible for people to register as stakeholders, and have them declare their standing on issues or categories ( satisfied, neutral, unsatisfied / Agree, neutral, disagree ). At any time the stakeholder could change their standing, so it is possible to see the trajectory as an issue is being discussed toward a resolution.
I think an on-going polling system like this would be a stepping stone toward having people assign their monetary contributions to fix specific issues they want to fix. Often times people just disagree on board stroke requirement for everyone to pay for a certain fix. The discussion drags on longer than it should. Just let people who already want to pay for the fix pay and get it fixed. Accountability can be calculated separately.
An issue pops and requires $10000 to fix. Most people agree that it should be fixed, but don’t know who should pay for it. Ask anyone to sponsor the fix and fix the problem, then continue to discuss who should actually be responsible for the bill. Keep taps on people who had paid so that later on when the people decide who was ultimately responsible and pays, those people can get a refund. And people who are willing to share the risk to “pay first, fix first, collect later” to avoid paralysis should be recognized.
Interesting that taxation has moved up over education funding, and population growth… never too big of a concern… has fallen drastically.
And I would guess that the drought has had an impact on the water quality and water rates top two (water on the brain)… meaning that budget/economic is probably higher if controlled for it.
But economic development still down the list is indication of a need for a lot of voter education.
education funding has been relatively solved through the parcel tax and improved economy. so that’s not surprising. the problem here seems to be that the categories are too broad but the question to specific. they need a way to allow people to rank order more general categories.
Sorry, but IMO this survey is effectively worthless. To ask “Are you satisfied?” tells us nothing about what the person being asked the question thinks about the city’s fiscal picture. Why not ask “Are you satisfied with the condition of the roads in Davis?”; “Are you aware that the city’s pools need $7million worth of repairs?”, etc.
I think that this point is indicative of the education need and opportunity. The budget is someone else’s problem unless the pain is personal.
When asked if he was satisfied with life as he was falling from the skyscraper while vigorously flapping his arms, the Davis voter said “yes”.
In the discussion of maintenance cost, I find it unnatural to keep mentioning the big price tag to fix a collection of problems. I think if might be easier to get things done by divide and conquer.
The city prioritize the fixes and show which issues would be fixed according the amount of money obtained:
$30K fixes issue A
$45K fixes issues A and B
$50K fixes issues A to C
$70K fixes issues A to D
…
Anon, are you saying that the City wasted its money in doing this survey the way that they did it?
i agree with anon that the survey itself is a problem.
that being said, a problem i have is that while the enterprise has declining influence, their lack of coverage on the fiscal crisis facing the city and their over-coverage, particularly dunning, on water, has inverted the priorities.
To Matt: Yes, I am saying the city wasted money on this survey. What purpose does it serve? The money spent on the survey could have fixed potholes!
Maybe the city wasted money on the survey – although it prevented them from launching a failed parcel tax, so perhaps not. But you know better than to say that the money spent on the survey could have fixed potholes.
Being facetious!
Sorry, my bad
David wrote:
> a 20-minute survey conducted in consultation with city staff.
Has anyone here taken a TWENTY (20) Minute phone survey?
Most people I know (both registered and non registered voters) never take ANY surveys and I don’t think that the “average” person will hang on the line for almost a half hour.
I took one right after 9/11. My wife actually took the phone survey we’re discussing.
Apparently the city did ask about satisfaction of the condition of the roads. Still not sure the survey was worth the money however.
It’s good to see that education still rates so low. It would be a terrible thing if the sheep woke up and demanded the best possible education for the best and brightest, the worst and dimmest, and all those in between. That would lead to untenably uppity sheep. We have to be especially wary of that best and brightest minority and take all steps necessary to make sure they are bored and demotivated as much as possible Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about that here, despite the best efforts of some really great teachers, because we live under the watchful eye of Great Leaders in the Porcine Pinnacle of Power who will make sure the school administrators are fed before the teachers. Oink.