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City council reviews quality of life survey
Its interpretation becomes the issue
By Daniel Hindin
The people of Sunnyvale have spoken--or at least some of them have. Those residents who responded to the city's "quality of life" study told authorities the single most important issue facing Sunnyvale is community safety.
Now that the results are in, however, members of the city council and staff disagree about what to do with them.
In January, city officials presented residents with what a task force headed by City Councilman Jim Roberts thought were the eight most important issues pertaining to the quality of life in Sunnyvale. They asked residents to choose three issues out of those eight that they believed deserved the most attention from the city.
Out of about 130,000 Sunnyvale residents, 389 chose to participate in the study--56 in person at the three open houses held throughout the city, 13 via mailed-in questionnaires and 320 over the Internet.
Officials were happy with the number of participants. Assistant City Manager Amy Chan considered the overall turnout to be "very significant. According to Dan Rich, assistant to the city manager, the city spent over $20,000 on the study.
Now that all the votes have been tabulated, voters' priorities can be listed in this order: a safe community; high quality education; a healthy, sustainable environment; an efficient, safe transportation system; quality, diverse, affordable housing; a diverse and growing economy; community pride and involvement and, finally, a community with diverse cultural opportunities.
At their Feb. 27 study session, city council members and key staff discussed the survey results, trying to figure out how to act on them.
"It provides a strategic framework to guide the city in developing projects," Chan said. "To meet someone's expectations, you need to know what those expectations are."
But some council members questioned the weight that should be assigned to the responses.
"I don't think anyone would argue that one issue is more important just because of the amount of votes it received," said City Manager Robert LaSala.
Many agreed with LaSala.
"Just because [these issues] are on the list," said Mayor Jack Walker, "doesn't mean that we have to focus on them."
This comes after Walker's repeated comments about the importance of encouraging community participation in city government activities.
In a recent discussion with The Sun, Walker said, "I'm trying to be as accessible as I can to residents so they feel they have a stake [in decisions that are made]."
At this point in Walker's term as mayor, the quality of life study is the most visible example of members of city council making themselves accessible to the public. If the council doesn't act on the information received in the survey, some residents believe it proves they don't have a stake in the council's decisions.
"Granted people may not know exactly what the city needs or how the needs can be met, but this is what was important to us," said Sunnyvale resident Shannon Senior, who responded to the survey.
Later Walker explained his comments at the meeting.
"If you focus on the items ranked one through five on the list, you get number seven pretty much for free," he said.
"What we have here is a report card that says how the city is doing," Walker continued. "What we're trying to do is find a way to look at the city differently than we normally do. We needed to look at the city independent from the city."
In fact, last year the city surveyed the population to rate its performance. Afterwards, the city acknowledged if they improved safety, transportation, education, housing and economy, community pride would increase.
When asked what effect residents' votes will have on future council action, Roberts said, "The citizens will find that we listened to them and found out these [issues] are the most important to them."
"Safety was first." Roberts continued, "but, after time, we'll probably find that we are doing very well [on safety issues]. On the other hand, I think we'll find that we can change traffic conditions more easily."
"That makes me feel like what's the point of participating if they already know which issues are most important to them," Senior responded. "Why bother?"
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
