The long-awaited City Survey has been received, and preliminary results have been distributed to council members via email. If I were not working remotely, I could post them on my website for public access, but that will have to wait until Monday. A public presentation will be made at the June 5 City Council meeting.

Following the mailing of a pre-survey notification postcard to a random sample of 3,000 households, surveys were mailed to the same residences approximately one week later. A reminder letter and a new survey were sent to the same households after two weeks. Residents were also able to complete the survey on the Internet. Approximately 141 postcards were undeliverable due to "vacant" or "not found" addresses. Of the 2,859 eligible households, 610 completed the survey, providing a response rate of 21%. Of the 610, 594 written surveys were received and 16 surveys were completed online. Typically, the response rates obtained on citizen surveys range from 20% to 40%.

I have extracted at the end of this message the staff summary of the survey results, which will accompany a public presentation at the June 5 City Council meeting. While the relative attitude about myriad things, as summarized in the staff report, is extremely useful in setting public policy priorities, the real news is the abysmally low esteem residents have for almost everything related to quality of life and services in Richmond.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised that when asked to rate the overall quality of life in Richmond, only 1% of respondents thought it was “excellent” and thirty-six percent rated overall quality of life as “poor.” In category after category, substantially less than 50% of those surveyed had positive perceptions of Richmond.

But what really caught my attention is that when the Richmond results were compared to those same questions asked in surveys of other cities across the country, Richmond residents’ level of satisfaction with virtually every municipal quality or service came in either dead last or close to it. For example, of 43 cities between 64,000 and 149,999 where the question “How do you rate the overall quality of life” was asked, Richmonders rated themselves 27 out of a possible 100, coming in dead last. When compared to 212 cities of all sizes, Richmond was still dead last.

In fact, in only two categories did Richmond even rise above the 50^th percentile, ease of bus travel and availability of public parking.

The depth and breadth of malaise in Richmond truly surprised me.

If there is any good news in this, it is that we are so far down that we have nowhere to go but up. For anyone but an optimist, it would be devastating.

When asked about the relative importance of issues for the City to address, the highest rating went to "improving street paving conditions" with 99% responding "essential" to "somewhat important." Next was increasing police staffing, with 98%. However, no more than a third of respondents, at best, would tax themselves or anything else in Richmond to improve conditions. What a challenge!

Key findings identified by City staff

The survey confirms that Richmond residents are mainly concerned about crime, drugs, lack of opportunities for youth, the overall appearance and reputation of the City, and the quality of public school education. It also confirms that the City is focusing on the community’s top concerns.  With the implementation of a new code enforcement task force, hiring of a new Crime Prevention Manager, establishment of a new Office of Neighborhood Safety, renewed partnership with the West Contra Costa Unified School District, and an increase in resources dedicated to street paving the City is demonstrating that it is moving in the right direction. 

The survey results also show that:

·        Respondents generally rated their neighborhood as a better place to live than they rated Richmond as a whole as a place to live.

·        Openness and acceptance were community characteristics rated the highest of any other general community characteristics surveyed.

·        Increased police staffing, improved road conditions, expanding after-school programs, increased street lighting, and expanding job training and development programs were viewed as the top five essential conditions the City should address.

·        The 18-24 year old population is the most dissatisfied group on most issues which possibly suggests that more attention and/or resources should be focused on this segment of the population.

·        Respondents who have lived here less than 2 years have a more positive view of the City’s land use, code enforcement and economic development policies than those living in Richmond for longer periods of time.

·        The quality of fire and ambulance services was ranked the highest of all City-employee provided services while the quality of crime prevention, street repair, and code enforcement services were the lowest. The quality of schools also ranked among the lowest.

·        A large percentage of respondents admitted they did not know about and had never used the City’s library services or recreational centers and programs.

·        Similarly, respondents were less familiar with the City’s services to the senior, youth, and low-income population than other City services.  More than half of the respondents did not have knowledge of the City-sponsored job training programs.

·        Respondents were least likely to get information about the City and its services from the City itself (Its website, City-produced weekly “Green Sheet”, City Council meetings, etc.). Instead, the majority of people received news about Richmond from the television, the West County Times and word of mouth.

·        Fifty-two percent of respondents rated their overall impression of City employees as either good or excellent.

·        The majority of respondents feel that both job and retail growth is moving too slowly.

·        Residents leave the City daily most often to dine, shop, and for their children’s schooling than they do for entertainment, food shopping, and outdoor recreation.

·        The City needs to inspire more volunteerism to involve people in the betterment of the Richmond community.

The survey results allow the City to establish City service benchmarks and help the City identify major resident concerns with the goal of increasing the overall reputation of Richmond and overall quality of life for Richmond residents.