THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502010120
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
How would you describe the city of Chesapeake to someone who has never been here?
Of 300 residents polled in Chesapeake's fifth-annual citizen survey, 72 percent said they had mostly good things to say about their city.
Those ratings and many others from the 28-question survey have improved from a year ago, said Public Affairs Director Mark S. Cox in a letter last week to the mayor and City Council members.
The city still has areas it needs to work on, Cox said. But, as a whole, the results indicate that, in spite of the cries of frustration about suburban sprawl, in spite of the portable classrooms and bad roads, Chesapeake residents may be more satisfied than contentious public hearings would suggest.
``A big chunk of information the council uses comes from those who come to city council meetings,'' Cox said. ``Those are people who tend to have a strong viewpoint one way or another.''
What the survey does, Cox said, is balance those voices out with a broader pulse of how citizens feel on a range of public issues.
A Norfolk-based firm conducted the interviews by phone in late 1994, reaching a random sample of residents from across the spectrum of racial, ethnic, neighborhood, age, gender and socioeconomic backgrounds. The study, which cost the city about $5,400, asked questions ranging from residents' recycling efforts to how safe they feel in their neighborhoods.
Some answers were more surprising than others.
Growth, a word that has inspired dread and anxiety among civic leagues and council members alike, got a relative thumbs-up from the residents who were polled. Only one out of five said they thought growth has been bad for the city; 73 percent said growth has been good.
On a series of questions rating the city's performance in the services it provides, residents ranked drinking water as the biggest problem. Almost half of those polled said they used bottled water for cooking or drinking, and one in four have home filtering systems.
``We know that the public still has a negative perception of our water,'' Cox said, ``but that is a perception problem more than a problem with the actual water. And that tells us where we need to expend our efforts.''
Cox said those efforts will go to informing citizens on progress that has been made within the Department of Utilities and explaining how water has improved in Chesapeake.
Residents identified roads and recreation space as other key areas in which the city's performance has been low. The dissatisfactory ratings also have been constant in the past five years.
But other areas have improved, according to the survey. Excellence in police protection was 8 percent higher in 1994 than in 1993. The year also saw a similar increase in the overall quality of life.
The results over time help the city know where they are doing a better job, and where to target future resources.
``The longer you do these surveys,'' Cox said, ``the more valuable they are. If you do it for one year, it is valuable, but you have nothing to compare the results to.''
Only one out of 15 residents had watched one to six council meetings on the city's cable channel, WCTV-23. More than 60 percent had never watched a council meeting.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE CITIZEN SURVEY by CNB