The quality of life in St. Albert is good according to an overwhelming majority of participants in the community satisfaction survey.
The results of the biennial survey were presented to council on Monday. This year they did both online and telephone surveys.
Maya Pungur-Buick, general manager of corporate strategic services for the city, said 400 people took the telephone survey and over 400 took the web-based version.
Pungur-Buick did note that the telephone and online results were similar despite the difference in screening.
For official purposes the results of the phone survey will be used because there were quotas involved to ensure neighbourhoods, age groups and genders were statistically represented in the results.
In the phone survey, 25 per cent of people said the quality of life was good in St. Albert, with 73 per cent calling it very good.
However, only 21 per cent felt that the quality of life had improved in the past few years, about two-thirds felt it had stayed the same.
Parks and green spaces, services and facilities and community safety were key factors in why people felt there’s a high quality of life here. But taxes and tax increases detract from that, said 37 per cent of respondents.
The perception of St. Albert as a safe community increased over 2012 results. Vandalism was considered the biggest safety and crime issue.
While people give high satisfaction ratings to the outdoor facilities, indoor recreation, fire and ambulance services and arts and culture in St. Albert, respondents were less satisfied with engineering, the economic development department and planning and development.
Only 54 per cent of telephone survey takers felt that council is acting in the best interests of the community and 42 per cent felt their personal interests were being served by council.
Top priorities for city council should be economic development according to 33 per cent and reducing taxes according to 22 per cent of the phone survey takers.
“Not surprisingly there’s an understandable level of concern regarding tax rates,” said Coun. Tim Osborne, though he noted the results also show people like their services as well.
Osborne noted that the phone results also get into why people were satisfied or not with a service – for instance, people who were dissatisfied with the Family and Community Support Services department felt that way because they don’t think there’s enough programs, awareness of the department’s work and that they’re underfunded.
“The detail is fantastic,” said Coun. Cam MacKay. He noted a common theme of economic development and tax reduction being concerns, and said that economic development is perceived as a means to reduce residential tax increases by bringing in more business.
Coun. Sheena Hughes said while there’s a lot of information it provides some direction to council on what the priorities are, and suggested some interpretations of the satisfaction and important rankings should be considered in budget and planning decisions.
Osborne pointed out that it’s likely the survey results will be interpreted in a number of ways.
