City to send out rec and leisure survey to residents
By Jana Seshadri
About 4,000 Sunnyvale residents will receive a survey this week asking for input and suggestions on how the city is faring in terms of recreation and leisure activities.
In September 2001, Robert Walker, director of parks and recreation, began the process of gathering input from residents about what works and what doesn't in Sunnyvale parks and leisure areas. With the help of the consulting firm Management Learning Laboratories, based in Winston Salem, N.C., the city learned what community groups, neighborhood associations, private citizens and the school community thought about Sunnyvale's recreation services. The firm has provided comprehensive recreation needs assessment to leisure organizations across the country for the past 30 years.
Ananda Mitra, president of the firm, conducted four focus group meetings at the Sunnyvale Community Center, teen meetings at Fremont and Homestead high schools and a town meeting at city hall to gather input from residents. Mitra designed a questionnaire/survey based on the public input he received.
"Our survey instrument is complete," Walker said.
The second step of the process is to send out the survey to the public, a step that is currently underway. The survey is being mailed to 4,000 residents who were selected by way of a random sample method. Besides "raising the consciousness of the residents," the returned surveys will be a scientific, valid sampling of the city, Walker said.
"This will feel the pulse of the community," he added.
It will take approximately 17 minutes to answer all the questions on the survey, Mitra said. He hopes residents will complete the questionnaires and return them within a week. The answers and suggestions provided on the surveys will gain insight into the attitudes, interests and needs of Sunnyvale citizens with regard to their leisure and recreation needs, he said.
Besides the resident surveys, two other questionnaires are being prepared--one for youth and one for park and leisure services users. City staff will distribute 1,000 youth questionnaires and 1,000 park-user surveys a couple of weeks later. A 10 or 15 percent return from the questionnaires and surveys would be sufficient to provide an adequate picture of what needs to be done, according to Mitra.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
