The City of Santa Clarita conducted its biennial public opinion poll earlier this year in an effort to learn how residents feel about the City’s job performance, to learn the importance of local issues and to determine areas where improvement is needed.
The 2016 poll surveyed 570 adults that make up a cross section of Santa Clarita residents of varying age groups who live in Canyon Country (36%), Newhall (16%), Saugus (22%) and Valencia (26%). Respondents were asked questions ranging from their experience with the use of City services, top community issues, as well as trust, availability of jobs, public safety, city beautification and landscaping, traffic, growth and libraries to name a few.
Residents in Santa Clarita place a lot of trust in their City, with 83% saying they trust or strongly trust the City of Santa Clarita. This response is up from 80% in 2014.
When asked if they felt the City of Santa Clarita was on the right track, 77% said yes, citing quality of life (35%) and a clean community (13%) as their reasons for the response. Asked how they would rate the overall quality of life in Santa Clarita, 85% responded “excellent” or “good.”
Respondents were asked what they felt was the most important issue facing Santa Clarita today. In response 19% said traffic/congestion; 15.8% said water availability/drought; 10.6% said growth/development; 9.4% said jobs or economy and 8.3% said public safety.
Learning about residents’ satisfaction with City services is important and helps the City continually improve. The highest satisfaction (very or somewhat satisfied) ratings included: Park facilities 91%; fire protection and prevention 90%; beautification of roadways and medians 89%; trails and paseos for public use 84%.
Of those surveyed, 31% work in the City; 56% do not work in the City and 12.8% do not work or are retired. Nearly 42% of those surveyed have lived in the City for 20 years or more; 32.8% for ten to 20 years; 12.2% for five to ten years and 12.1% less than five years.
“Our City places a high priority on creating and maintaining a high quality of life for our residents and our business community. It is gratifying to see that we are succeeding in helping to create a community that is satisfying to those who live and work here,” commented Mayor Bob Kellar.
The complete 2016 public opinion poll is available on the City’s website at: www.santa-clarita.com.
