Auburn citizens will have the opportunity for their voices to be heard in the community when the 2012 Citizen Survey is distributed during the second week of February.
"It has a series of questions for them to answer, and it also has an open-ended question," said David Dorton, director of public affairs.
Dorton called the survey a report card from the citizens.
"The way we use it and the reason we do it is just as another avenue to get citizen input," he said.
Although other avenues for communication between citizens and the city are open--including city council meetings and open door policies for both the mayor and city manager--the annual survey allows the city to gather information and find out the community's opinion on a variety of issues.
"It's designed to be a scientific survey so that there's some scientific validity to the results," Dorton said.
Citizens' responses are analyzed and a report is prepared by ETC Institute, a market research firm in Olathe, Kan.
"We're shooting for 600 completed surveys altogether," said Chris Tatham, ETC executive vice president.
The firm will send1500 surveys to addresses in the Auburn city limits. Once all the surveys are out, ETC will make phone calls to confirm people have received their surveys and offer them the option to complete it by phone.
"It takes about 4-5 weeks to administer the survey," Tatham said. "The administration of the survey will be pretty much completed by the end of February. We'll then analyze the results and prepare the report in March."
Dorton said the report will be presented to the city during a regularly scheduled city council work session prior to a Tuesday city council meeting.
Tatham said the focus will be on pointing out trends from previous surveys and identifying emerging issues for the city.
"There are questions that ask about ... specific projects," Dorton said.
Skateboard parks have been featured on the survey for the past couple years.
According to Dorton, the results are used to help develop the city's budget, adjust operations and set goals.
The survey covers a number of topics, including traffic flow and public safety.
"It's a five-point Likert scale, from very dissatisfied to very satisfied," said Chris Vessell, public information officer, "but I think there's also a priority rating that they also match up."
In other words, citizens can distin
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