Minutes - Council Work Session - 04/05/2011

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Councilmember Elvig talked about contacting businesses to offer coupons - $5 or something like that. Mayor Ramsey stated he is not opposed to that but he did not want more than 20 questions. Councilmember Elvig agreed with that. Councilmember Wise expressed issue with random selection. He suggested "x" percent coming from the northwest corner, "x" percent coming from another corner — or maybe do it by ward. Mayor Ramsey asked why someone is going to care who lives in Sweet Bay Ridge right now — they will not have to deal with this for years but someone on 151 will have to have their roads done in the next five years. Councilmember Backous stated that 100 questions is outrageous. The idea came up because we wanted it to be broader but maybe just five to ten carefully thought -out questions would work. People who are doing this proposal have figures on how much accuracy drops off after so many questions and paying people too much will do something to the accuracy as well. He appreciated adding some questions to it but not many. Mayor Ramsey agreed that 30 should be the maximum amount of questions. Councilmember Backous inquired how long the survey would take. Director of Public Works Olson replied that staff has had a couple of conversations with Decision Resources and they have said 20 to 25 minutes and they would call randomly. That's the only way you can get statistically significant results on this issue. Generally you are getting answers from people who have issues that need resolving. They will call and if you cannot spend a half hour on this, they will call you back unless you do not want them to — then they choose another random number. He stated he appreciated the comments received tonight and wished that Decision Resources could have been present. They do this and they do not have to supply coupons for doing it. He added that the City of Burnsville did a 139- question survey. Councilmember McGlone stated that this road issue is a stand -alone issue. They will need 30 questions to get at what we are trying to get at and he was not interesting in changing it. Councilmember Backous stated that if we are tacking on this other part of the survey, then we should just stick with the original questions. If it works well, we can do another one later on a different question. Councilmember Wise inquired if these are anonymous, to which Mr. Olson replied yes. Councilmember Wise wondered if we should give the person the option to give his name and we could do a follow -up if they want — maybe conduct a focus group. Mr. Ulrich suggested we could ask that question at the end. This will be a 30- questions survey and about ten questions be background information. It will be kept short, it will be purely about streets, and maybe it could be segmented into wards. City Council Work Session — April 5, 2011 Page 9 of 12