Minutes - Council Work Session - 03/11/2014

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that may come up. Mayor Strommen stated if a survey is not used, the Council will need to determine how it can measure whether or not it has met people's expectations. City Administrator Ulrich explained that the best results will come from a scientific survey and reach a middle ground in sampling a broad cross section of the community. He stated thousands of dollars of staff time would be involved with method 3) utility bill survey and the results may not be as lasting or useful with trend data, depending on the issue and who responds. Councilmember Tossey stated he thinks only those with complaints will respond to a mailed survey but statistical data from method 4) third party telephone survey, would be very costly. Instead, he thinks an election shows the true cross section of what residents think. Councilmember Tossey stated if it takes a tremendous amount of staff time, you do not do it and he thinks $10,000 for a telephone survey is too costly. Councilmember Backous agreed that with a utility bill insert only complaints will be received. He noted if the City is not hearing from residents, that is also an answer and means they are probably happy. Councilmember Backous stated he would not support methods 4 or 5 due to the high cost. He noted the receptionist or an intern could input data and there could be a survey drop box available at the front counter. Councilmember Backous stated support for a middle ground, which will force the City to come up with the criteria that is the most important. Mayor Strommen referenced the balanced scorecard indicating the goal is to "achieve a 90 percent or higher rating amongst resident's customer satisfaction for overall public service and safety in the community." She stated the Council should find another means to measure if it is thought that written surveys will result in only complaints. Mayor Strommen noted that if the survey is not conducted in a scientific way, it may not be useful in basing decisions upon. She stated the Council can determine if there is cost benefit with different methods of survey, but if not a survey, another proxy needs to be found. Councilmember Johns stated she leans towards staff's recommendation because if measured every few years, a good base is needed as a point of comparison and from which to measure to determine if there have been improvements. Councilmember LeTourneau stated he uses the balanced scorecard as a tool in his work and one issue is to implement a measurement of something not already being measured because you cannot baseline it. He stated the Council may have put the "cart before the horse" by identifying the 90% measure. He thinks the survey should be the base and then measurement occur from that baseline. Councilmember LeTourneau stated the Council put together a process to measure it objectively and identified what it wanted measured. Based on staffs analysis, the third party mailing came out ahead when based on that criteria established by the Council. Councilmember Kuzma stated he understands the desire to measure results but thinks if using the Ramsey Resident, his wife would have filled it out and returned it. He supported method 1, Ramsey Resident survey. City Council Work Session / March 11, 2014 Page 7 of 9