Landing page for the 2020 Oshkosh Citizen Survey Report results. (IMAGE: Courtesy of City of Oshkosh)
OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ) – A citizen survey is giving Oshkosh city leaders a better idea of where to focus their efforts to improve areas that residents deem important.
Over the past decade, the trend of positive opinions about living in Oshkosh has risen substantially.
“Oshkosh is generally seen as a place that is moving in the right direction,” says Communications Coordinator Andy Radig, “In 2009, only 27% felt the city was moving in the right direction. In 2020, we’re looking at 53%.”
The results showed how residents feel about living in the city. Overall, the results were fairly good.
“82% report a positive quality of life in Oshkosh, which is a great number. And also about 92% are feeling safe in their home, neighborhood, or commercial business areas during the day…Only about 53% feel safe in commercial or business areas after dark,” says Radig, “Top areas with an excellent quality rating are trash collections services, the Oshkosh Public Library, and recycling services…those that could stand some improvement were planning and zoning – and snow and ice removal during the winter.”
Those responses and opinions from people throughout the community provide a guiding light as the city works to narrow their focus on specifics services that need to change. Any services that need work will be addressed with individual department heads and implemented at that level.
“It helps us to know what areas we’re doing well with, then it also helps us to determine budgeting and to take a look at those areas that might need additional work,” Radig says, “It comes back to planning and looking to the future, and then just those individual departments working with the city council and city manager.”
The survey was distributed to residents through online polling company Polco, which is designed to connect local governments with their communities. 294 residents participated in the survey. The city’s population is about 66,000. But even that number of responses achieved statistical validity based on a 90% confidence interval.
“The results were determined to actually achieve a 5-percent margin of error based on the sample rate,” Radig tells WTAQ News, “That’s about the highest level of confidence that we’re able to achieve through the methodology.”
To see the full 2020 Citizen Survey results, head to the City of Oshkosh’s website.
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