WESTLOCK – The first exhaustive Town of Westlock satisfaction survey in at least the last decade has been a hit with residents, with nearly 500 responses in only a week on questions ranging from whether there’s enough affordable housing options in town, to the state of the roads and whether the community is good place to raise their children.
The 39-question survey, available in printed form from the town office, FCSS and Rotary Spirit Centre or online by following this link, opened Sept. 16 and closes this coming Friday, Sept. 30 — town officials say it takes 10-15 minutes to complete.
CAO Simone Wiley said Sept. 23 they’ve been floored by the response so far as in her eight years with the town they haven’t done a “full-on” survey, although they did do a three-question general survey in advance of strategic planning a few years back.
“A survey was on the list of things that I felt was important for council to have a data-set prior to going into our budget discussions this year and our service-level discussions. It helps them make more-informed decisions, especially when we have such a great cross-section of responses,” said Wiley. “Even at 500, that’s a decent percentage of the community who have responded.”
Once the survey wraps, town officials will compile the data and then present it to councillors at a meeting in either October or November.
“The kind of questions that are in the survey are meant to facilitate service-level discussions. So, we’re asking about their satisfaction with the peace officer and wastewater and utility services, those kinds of things,” she explained. “There’s only the one, pointed question about do they want to see the large item pickup annually or semi-annually.”
