Village of Bartlett Committee of the Whole met Jan. 3.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
CALL TO ORDER
President Wallace called the Committee of the Whole meeting of January 3, 2023 of the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Bartlett to order on the above date at 7:09 p.m.
ROLL CALL
PRESENT: Chairmen Deyne, Gandsey, Gunsteen (via Zoom), Hopkins, LaPorte, Suwanski, President Wallace (via zoom)
ABSENT: None
ALSO PRESENT: Village Administrator Paula Schumacher, Assistant Village Administrator Scott Skrycki, Sr. Management Analyst Samuel Hughes, Management Analyst Joey Dienberg, Finance Director Todd Dowden, Public Works Director Dan Dinges, Assistant Public Works Director Tyler Isham, Village Engineer Bob Allen,
Planning & Development Director Kristy Stone, Food and Beverage Manager Paul Petersen, Police Chief Geoff Pretkelis, Deputy Chief’s Naydenoff and Durbin, Village Attorney Bryan Mraz and Village Clerk Lorna Giless.
COMMUNITY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, CHAIRMAN GANDSEY
Community Survey Results
Chairman Gandsey introduced the item.
Management Analyst Joey Dienberg presented the attached document.
Chairman Gandsey stated when she was looking at the raw data she saw that it is not broke down by age group, we are putting it all together, especially someone middle age with kids, social media was above the Bartletter so she thinks it’s something to keep in mind when we are looking at the data as we think about planning for the future. She also noticed that if you look at the overall quality of life by age group, it went down. Additionally, the response to the app and alerts stuck out at her and she thinks that is something important to think about as we do strategic planning and what technology is needed/resources to run that technology for the future.
Mr. Dienberg stated one thing we also wanted to bring forward when it comes to strategic planning is seeing those trends in those groups as well as location of where people lived and seeing trends that way.
Chairman Suwanski asked how representative of the village was the question about having kids under 17 in the home, was given that only 27% responded yes.
Ms. Schumacher stated she believes that information is collected with our census data so we can break that down.
Chairman LaPorte asked if there were any common denominators from the comments that were left.
Mr. Dienberg stated most of the word clouds we did were made from those comments. The larger words are more common.
Ms. Schumacher stated that they asked residents to elaborate when their scores were “poor” to help us improve. When she was reading those comments, there was not a whole lot that surprised her and it was a lot of things that we were already addressing with the current strategic plan. In all fairness to the residents responding, they do not always know what we are working on until it is in the public preview. The bike path comments are a good example because the survey went out before that was published and the plan is covering many of the specific requests about linking paths, etc. There is some lag between what we know, what we are working on and what the community sees. Some of that is a function of timing and some of that is better communication on what we are working on. There was nothing that stood out to her as being very surprising in the comments. There is a lot of grist for the mill for strategic planning in January to kind of hone in on some particulars and there are some goals in our strategic plan that can be better defined through the survey. A lot of the technology questions about where we see ourselves in a few years and what we think will be on our horizon. The survey provides a glimpse into that.
Chairman Gandsey stated that it looked like a lot of people gave their email addresses and she was wondering what the purpose was.
Mr. Dienberg stated that was collected in case there was some low hanging fruit questions that could easily be answered, then we could reach out to them.
Chairman LaPorte stated it looked like the Bartletter was the top ranked source of communication. Maybe we can take the top 5 issues or questions that popped up and highlight those in the Bartletter. If there is a communication breakdown we should let the residents know what we are doing and not doing, then we can let the residents know that we are going to start.
Chairman Hopkins asked if we compared this survey to other surveys we did in the past.
Ms. Schumacher stated it is a bit tricky because we don’t ask the same questions every time, but some of the overarching things include senior housing, cultural things, the school district, pretty much anything that was bubbling at the time in the community.
Chairman Gandsey stated the number one question is overall quality of life and we should ask that every time.
Chairman Laporte stated it would be nice to have a year end summary for our residents to let them know what we have been doing.
Chairman Hopkins asked how satisfied staff is with the response rate.
Mr. Dienberg stated we did a survey of other communities and in terms of comparing us with other communities that did it in-house, we reached that 8% mark that is pretty similar to other communities.
Ms. Schumacher stated other towns were between 4-8% so we did well in terms of outreach.
Chairman Hopkins asked if you get a better response rate when you use a firm. Ms. Schumacher stated no.
President Wallace stated he thinks we should pay attention to the type of person who responds to a survey. Either they always give their opinion or they are mad about something. He thinks the results are really good and it will be a good springboard for strategic planning.
There being no further business to discuss, Chairman Deyne moved to adjourn the Committee meeting and the motion was seconded by Chairman Suwanski.
ROLL CALL VOTE TO ADJOURN
AYES: Chairmen Deyne, Gandsey, Gunsteen, Hopkins, LaPorte, Suwanski NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
MOTION CARRIED
The meeting was adjourned at 7:32 p.m.
https://www.bartlettil.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/12943/638097196886870000
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