Grand Haven Township Citizen Survey

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Grand Haven Township Citizen Survey

• Ben OConnor
• Stephen Carlson
• Malinda Van Sledright

GVSU geography and planning dept GPY 495 capstone
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Introduction

• Purpose of study
• Administer a survey to measure Grand Haven
  Township residents knowledge and satisfaction of
  township services and township issues
• Background
• Worked with GHT board members to create a
  citizen survey
• What is a citizen survey?

3
Citizen Survey

• Telephone citizen survey can be efficient way to
  gain insight on governmental issues.
• Better response rate than mail surveys
• More feasible than door to door survey
• Aid in policy making decisions
• Provides statistical evidence to base decisions
  on.

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Study Area

• Grand Haven Township
• Total area of 35.7 square miles
• 13,278 people
• 3,811 families
• 4,609 housing units

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Methods and Materials

• Survey Instrument
• Modeled after The national citizen survey found
  on the internet
• With help from board members we took most
  relevant questions and used them for our survey
• Added two policy questions that GHT board members
  created

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Methods and Materials

• Sample question

1. Please rate the following quality of life
issues with a response of Excellent, Good, Poor,
or Dont Know.
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Methods and Materials

• Policy Question
• The next to questions are about Grand Haven
  Township property tax and millage for roads and
  policing.
• 13a. Grand Haven Township supplements monies form
  the Ottawa County Road Commission to help
  maintain the roads. Do you support the policy
  of using township tax dollars to help maintain
  the streets and roads?
• a.__Yes
• b.__No
• If answer is yes for 13a then go to question
  13b.
• 13b. Would you be willing to spend an additional
  15 per year for a person with a 100,000 home
  to continue or expand the road maintenance
  program?
• a.__Yes
• b.__No

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Methods and Materials

• Sample Frame
• Random sample
• Bressers Criss Cross
• SPSS
• Narrowed list down to just GHT residents using
  zip codes. (49417, 49460)
• 6759 listed residents
• 368 respondents needed (5 margin of error)

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Methods and Materials

• Survey administration
• 10-15 minute telephone survey
• Used GVSU professors offices ASH
• Called between 6pm and 9pm weeknights
• Over 3 week time period

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Methods and Materials

• Data Entry
• Each completed survey instrument was given a
  unique number
• Each response for each question was given a code
  number
• Entered by hand in Microsoft Excel
• 80 responses for each of 247 surveys
• 20,000 entries

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Methods and Materials
Code numbers
Any missing response was given a code number of
9999
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Methods and Materials
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Methods and Materials

• Data manipulation
• Microsoft Excel database transferred to SPSS
  (statistical database)
• Various statistical tests ran in SPSS

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Preliminary Results
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GHT as a Place To Live
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Population Growth
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Retail Growth
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Jobs Growth
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Support of Current Road Commission Policy
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Willingness to Spend More Tax Dollars to Continue
or Expand Road Maintenance Program
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Support of Law Enforcement Policy
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Willingness to Spend More Tax Dollars to Continue
or Expand Law Enforcement Coverage
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Results

• T-Test

No significance difference between number of
years lived in GHT and view on population
growth P value.341 P value needs to be less
than 0.05 to be considered significant
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Summary

• Respondents

• 94.7 believed GHT is an excellent or good place
  to live
• 50.8 believed GHT population growth is too fast
• 42.3 believed retail growth is too slow and
  37.4 believed it to be the right amount
• 56.9 believed job growth is too slow
• 57.7 would support a tax increase to continue or
  expand road maintenance program.
• 61.8 would support a tax increase to maintain or
  improve police protection services.

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Limitations

• Low response rate
• Caller ID
• Proximity to presidential elections
• Length of survey
• Sample
• Nature of data set
• Took more than one sample
• 450, 200, 300, 400
• Age of respondents
• Time

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Thanks

• SS 300 students
• GPY 495 capstone students
• Roy Cole
• Grand Haven Township

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Questions?

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