Minutes - Council Work Session - 03/19/2024 - Special

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Councilmember Musgrove agreed and noted that they will get information from the residents concerning road conditions and other City matters without asking these types of questions. She added that they do not look at race or ethnicity when it comes to road projects and they do these projects based on the condition of the road and the needs of the residents. She added that this survey is also not updating things, such as updating Twitter to X in the social media question. She stated she does not understand how finding out if people share their opinions online makes a difference in how they serve the community. She asked what information this brings to the City that would change their service. She noted that questions about how long someone has lived in Ramsey and what kind of housing they live in is helpful to them. She added that the question about monthly income is also invasive as they get this information from the County. She asked if they are going to change anything about how they serve the City based on the answer to this question. Councilmember Woestehoff stated that the purpose of the financial question is to make sure that they are not getting skewed survey results and that the responses they do receive are weighted appropriately to the population they do have. Councilmember Musgrove asked if they would need question D11 to figure out if the responses are weighted appropriately. Councilmember Woestehoff noted that he believes that question D11 is more useful when it comes to programming for Parks and Recreation. Councilmember Musgrove asked about all other languages other than Spanish that are not addressed in question D11. She said she does not understand how having this question is not excluding every other language. Mayor Kuzma said they could add ‘other’ as a response to this question. Councilmember Musgrove said this would still exclude so many specific races. She noted that on the census these questions are marked as optional. She asked if these questions could be optional on this survey as well. City Administrator Hagen said if someone takes the survey they are not forced to answer any question. Councilmember Musgrove said there is no statement with these questions that say they do not have to be answered. She added that she would like to find out from the survey company if these questions are optional and they can include a statement that tells people that these questions are optional. Councilmember Riley said he would be fine with removing some of these questions. He said question D11 is extremely pointed as they do not ask specifically about all other races and languages. He noted that questions D11, D12, and D14 could be removed. He added that for question D1, the number of times a day people are checking their emails, visiting social media City Council Work Session / March 19, 2024 Page 3 of 17