Survey Results: Your Priorities = Our Priorities

The results are in from the February community survey, and the good news is that the priorities the County has set largely reflect the citizens' priorities as we begin 2009.

1. TOP COMMUNITY CONCERNS. When asked the top concerns for your community, the top choices were:
1) Economic Growth and Competitiveness (50% said it was of highest priority, 1 on a scale of 1 to 5);
2) Public Safety (47.4%); and
3) Quality of Life (45.7%).

The other choices were well back, but balancing budgets was number four, at 31.3%

2. COUNTY PRIORITIES. When asked what priorities you'd like to see the County focus on in the upcoming year, the results were similar, but with economic concerns ever further out front:
1) Economic and Job Growth/Revitalization (60.3% said it was highest priority);
2) Public Safety (44.1%), and
3) Shared and consolidate services (31%).

3. When asked how the County can better assist with each community's needs, I was pleased that the top two choices by far are things we are pursuing:
1) More aggressive pursuit of shared services (61.4% selected this), and
2) Regular meetings in communities (47.7%). (NOTE: we had our first such meeting in Blue Ash last week).

There were tons of comments to the open-ended questions, so many different ideas they're hard to summarize. As to how else the county could help, there was a lot of focus on economics, safety, and others issues such as transportation, quality of life, and improving local government.

As to large challenges faced in different communities, a lot of focus on housing and foreclosures, economic troubles, crime, government effectiveness, and taxes.