REQUEST FOR CITY COUNCIL ACTION
DATE: 10/18/2023
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: City Manager’s Office
SUBJECT:
Title
RESULTS OF THE 2023 COMMUNITY SURVEY
End
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
This staff report asks the City Council to receive and comment on the results of the 2023 Community Survey. The survey report provides the perception of 972 randomly sampled residents on 22 performance indicators from the City’s Strategic Plan. Compared with the 2022 National Community Survey, residents' perceptions of the City of Corona improved across almost all categories.
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Recommended action
That the City Council receive and file the 2023 Community Survey Report.
Body
BACKGROUND & HISTORY:
The City of Corona Strategic Plan includes 22 performance indicators pertaining to resident perceptions of the City and its services. These perceptions are gathered in an annual survey to measure our progress in achieving the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan.
In 2022, the City contracted with the National Research Center at Polco to utilize their National Community Survey (NCS) to gather these data and benchmark the results against over 600 other cities that participated in the NCS within the previous 5 years. 714 residents participated in the 2022 survey, and the results were presented to Council on October 19th, 2022.
City staff determined that they had the technical capability and subject matter expertise to conduct a statistically valid, representative survey for the 2023 Community Survey.
ANALYSIS:
The 2023 Community Survey was developed and distributed by the City of Corona. To increase participation rates and decrease the time burden on the participants, as compared to the NCS, the 2023 Community Survey contained only the specific perception questions associated with the City's Strategic Plan.
A random sample of 1400 residences in each of the five districts (7000 total) were invited to participate in the survey. The survey was conducted between June 30th and September 27th, 2023. The survey was distributed first by email invitation and second with a mailed paper survey. The email list was compiled using utility, animal license, and recreation center data. The survey was available in English and Spanish. All survey invitations included a unique link and QR code to prevent a respondent from participating more than once. Four follow-up email invitations were sent to encourage participation before a printed version of the survey was distributed. Participants who completed the paper survey were verified that they had not completed the online survey, and then had their responses entered into the dataset by staff. A post-survey geographical analysis was conducted to ensure that the respondents were dispersed throughout each district and the city.
Of the 7,000 households that were invited to participate, 972 completed the survey, providing an overall response rate of 13.9%. This response rate has 95% level of confidence that the survey findings are representative of the entire population, within a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points around any given percent reported. The 2023 sample demographic profile and housing characteristics are similar to the 2022 NCS sample. A detailed description of the participant demographics is contained in section 2.4 of the report.
The survey results are discussed in sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the report. Compared with the 2022 NCS, residents' perceptions of the City of Corona improved across almost all categories. The most significant improvements were in the residents' perceptions regarding Corona's openness and acceptance of people of diverse backgrounds, treating all residents fairly, the overall appearance of Corona, its overall image or reputation, overall confidence in Corona government, and the City's efforts to reduce homelessness. The areas that showed the least improvement were the overall perception of Corona as a place to live, and Corona as a place to raise children, which already had very high positive perception percentages. The singular item that had a lower percent than 2022 was the residents' feeling of safety in their neighborhood during the day.
The summary table in the staff report shows the percentage of respondents scoring the items as “excellent” or “good” in comparison to the 2022 NCS results. Each of the questions is further analyzed in the survey report.
The survey was also made available online for anyone who wanted to participate. It was promoted on the City’s social media channels and website during the same timeframe as the representative sample. 232 responses were received through this open participation process. These responses are analyzed separately from the scientific sample in section 7 of the report. Overall, the open survey responses were significantly more negative than the random survey responses, except their perception of the City’s efforts to reduce homelessness and the amount of their individual volunteering efforts.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
There is no financial impact associated with receiving the results of the 2023 Community Survey.
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS:
This action is exempt pursuant to Section 15061(b)(3) of the Guidelines for the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which states that a project is exempt from CEQA if the activity is covered by the common sense exemption that CEQA applies only to projects that have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. Where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment, the activity is not subject to CEQA. This action is to receive a report on the results of the City’s annual Community Survey and there is no possibility that approving this project will have a significant effect on the environment. Therefore, no environmental analysis is required.
PREPARED BY: JUSTIN TUCKER, ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER
REVIEWED BY: JACOB ELLIS, CITY MANAGER
Attachments:
1. Exhibit 1 - 2023 Community Survey Report
2. Exhibit 2 - Presentation