This is the preliminary summary of the survey results. To see the detailed 8-page report of actual responses, click here. (Note this is a pdf file. If you don't have a pdf reader, get Acrobat reader from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com).

BACKGROUND

Public participation is an essential ingredient in the recipe for successful community planning. In a recent survey of planning commission members, increasing public participation was identified as one of the five most important needs community planners should be focusing on. Public meetings are often viewed as the key strategy for involving residents in planning. Unfortunately meetings often fail to attract a representative cross section of the community.

Community surveys, in stark contrast to meetings, offer every resident an opportunity to voice an opinion on important issues. By any measure the participation rate for community residents is always higher in a survey than in public meetings. With this in mind, the Carthage 336 Highway Impact Study Steering Committee conducted a community-wide survey as a key component of the Carthage comprehensive planning process.

The Steering Committee met several times late in 2002 and early in 2003 to identify community issues and develop questions for the survey. After several editing sessions the survey was finalized and distributed to residents in February. The surveys were hand delivered to households throughout the city by community leaders and volunteers. By early March the data collection portion of the project was completed. The completed survey forms were turned over to University of Illinois Extension staff for data entry and tabulation. The following report summarizes what the people of Carthage had to say about several important community issues and provides the detailed responses to all questions

KEY FINDINGS

1. 558 households, 46.5% of all households in Carthage, completed surveys.

2. There was very little bias in the survey. People responding to the survey look remarkably like the city residents as a whole except for age and home ownership. The average respondent was older and more likely to be a homeowner than the average for all households in the community.

3. Respondents identified several infrastructure issues. The most important were the condition of sidewalks and streets and drinking water quality and services. Over one third said they were dissatisfied with these services. The quality of sidewalks was rated as the feature of downtown most in need of improvement. At the other end of the scale, electric and natural gas utilities received very high satisfaction ratings with fewer than 5% of respondents saying they were dissatisfied.

4. There were very high satisfaction ratings for nearly all public health and safety services. Fire protection, ambulance, and law enforcement received extremely high satisfaction ratings with less than 5% saying they were dissatisfied with these services. Services for senior citizens was the lowest rated of these services with only 12.4% saying they were dissatisfied.

5. Although municipal government performance landed in the middle of the rankings a large majority indicated they were satisfied with the leadership provided by the city council and the responsiveness of city employees.

6. Residents completing the survey tended to have a very positive opinion about the impact of IL 336 on the community. A significant majority (80%) support aggressive action on the part of the city to promote and manage development of the intersection with the highway. 95% said it would be good for Carthage if the road brings more tourists and shoppers to town. On the downside, nearly one half said they would be more likely to shop out of town.

7. Health care, with a focus on the hospital, emerged as one of the greatest concerns of those responding to the survey. “Supporting and expanding health care” was the highest ranked economic development priority. 90% believe it is very important to keep a hospital in Carthage and nearly 50% said they would be willing to pay higher taxes to improve health and medical services.

8. The educational system received relatively high approval ratings with over 70% saying they are satisfied with the indicators included in the survey. Those indicators included extracurricular offerings, educational quality, course offerings, and technology, vocational, and college preparation classes. Nearly 45% agreed with the statement “to meet future needs we will have to consolidate within five years”.

9. People in the community are very concerned about expanding economic opportunity in Carthage. Less than 20% thought there are sufficient opportunities for earning a respectable income in Carthage and 70% disagreed with the statement “adequate resources are being used to develop new jobs in the community”. Over 75% believe attracting new manufacturing business and retaining and expanding existing business should be a priority. Promoting new residential development received the lowest priority rating with 47% selecting it as a high or very priority.

10. The most important downtown issues identified by survey respondents are the appearance of storefronts, overall appearance of the downtown, and the quality of sidewalks. Over two thirds of all respondents said much or some improvement is needed on these downtown characteristics.

11. Nearly 75% said attracting new retail businesses was a high or very high priority yet 44% shop out of town every week for products available in town. Lower prices and an increase in the variety of stores are by the far the two most important factors that would increase shopping locally.

12. Questions about overall community attitudes revealed some ambivalence about growth and change with a significant proportion of respondents expressing satisfaction with things as they are in Carthage. 42% said they were satisfied with things as they are now. A slightly larger proportion 44% agreed with the statement “the future of Carthage looks bright”.

13. The old college campus is an important issue that many would like to see resolved. This was the number one ranked priority on a list of community development projects with 56% saying it was a very high priority and 26% a high priority. It was the second highest ranked project on a list where people were asked if they were willing to pay for the improvement, the top ranked was health care. Over 440 ideas for what to do with the property were submitted through written comments.