August 4, 2015
(West Palm Beach, FL) – For the first time in a decade, the city of West Palm Beach has asked residents “How are we doing?”
Today the city released the results from the first resident opinion survey taken in about 10 years. The survey covered residents thoughts on quality of life, safety, city services, taxes, growth and development and much more.
Overall, 83% of residents rated the quality of life in West Palm Beach as excellent, very good, or good, with 93% of residents saying they feel safe in their neighborhoods during the day and 82% of residents saying they feel safe in their neighborhoods during the evening.
Despite those numbers, crime was the number one concern, followed by traffic, the cost of housing and economic development.
The study also broke down city services to specific departments, and topping the list of services to which residents gave a thumbs up were trash collection and the fire department. Downtown parking ranked at the bottom.
Among residents who said the city should provide some service that it currently doesn’t, more wanted better transportation than anything else. Yet almost half of all residents said they would not be willing to pay any additional taxes to fund any additional services. Four out of five residents also said they do not want tax dollars to pay to run a municipal golf course.
Two in three residents thought they were receiving an excellent, very good, or good value for City-provided services based on what they pay in taxes, but residents preferred user-based fees by nearly a four-to-one margin over increased property taxes if the city needs more money.
The survey, conducted by Kerr & Downs Research, was done over a ten day period in June and included 600 randomly selected households.
The entire report can be downloaded HERE.
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