Wasillans weigh in on life in city

September 11, 2005

MARY AMES/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - The results are in. Now people in the Valley can find out what Wasilla residents think of their city in the just-issued "City of Wasilla Community Survey." The man behind the survey, Dave Dittman of Dittman Research Corp., will attend Monday's City Council meeting to sum things up in five minutes.

Dittman mailed out 3,040 surveys on May 13. Between May 16 and June 21, 558 were returned - an 18 percent response rate, higher than the national average of 12 percent, according to Dittman. Questions about all things Wasilla, from growth to Web site, were answered by 558 residents and 18 businesses who use the city services, revealing their level of satisfaction.

Among issues of concern, the city's utilities, library and museum all received mostly favorable ratings.

Respondents reported less satisfaction with roads than other public services. Fewer than half of those who responded gave "excellent or good" ratings to neighborhood street maintenance and grading of gravel roads. A little more than half gave the city's snow removal efforts an excellent/good rating.

Mayor Dianne M. Keller said some of the less than positive road feedback was due to Parks Highways construction, which is not in the city's control. She said she was pleased with the ratings on local roads and how city road crews performed.

"It's good to see the public recognizes the hard work from the city staff," said Keller, who commissioned the $15,900 survey.

Overall, public safety was rated highly, with 90 percent reporting that they feel very or somewhat safe in their neighborhoods during the day and 82 percent saying the same for the nighttime hours. But individual public safety aspects got a less rosy assessment. More than 80 percent of respondents said that illegal drug use, speeding in neighborhoods and drunken driving are either major or moderate problems in the city.

Growth was also a concern for respondents. Nearly four out of five said they believe Wasilla is growing too fast.

Can 558 people give an accurate picture of all the people in Wasilla? According to Dittman, that number is more than enough.

Dittman said Anchorage polls normally have 250 respondents, the state has 500 and nationally you expect 1,000 to 1,500.

"What you have is basically the bell curve," Dittman said. "The ideal reliable is 384. Anything above that number is just more and more of what you have anyway. The only real value of a larger sample size is allowing any subsamples to stand alone."

Ted Leonard, the city's finance director, has been a proponent of doing this survey for three or four years.

"It's pretty much part of our performance-based budget system," he said. "How to measure our performance? What's our customer satisfaction? What are people happy with? How will we allocate money? Do you want more spent on roads and less on something else?"

The survey gives the city answers to those questions. And it is a yardstick for specific departments to measure their progress, Leonard said.

For example, each department sets goals and objectives. If the Department of Public Works has a goal of 60 percent of residents rating roads as excellent/good, and the survey showed a 50 percent rating, that department head would have to answer "What are you going to improve?" according to Leonard.

The city is now working on multi-year budgets, and the survey will help with that and with its strategic plan.

"It's a scorecard of goals," Leonard said.

According to the survey, 73 percent of those who participated in the survey want more ways for the city to conduct business using its Web site. In a nod to that wish, Leonard is scanning the print version into PDF and putting it online.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.