Pepperell Post, January 2012: Focus group report: Saco citizens offer opinions on city services



A Newsletter by the City of Saco, Maine	January, 2012	Return to newsletter index

Focus group report: Saco citizens offer opinions on city services

In October of 2011, the city met with two focus groups of citizens to discuss their views on the delivery of city services and on how well the city communicates with its citizens. The following is the findings report from those groups. This work was funded by a grant from the National Center for Civic Innovation.

There are six sections to the findings.

1. Please list the major objectives you described in your request for the supplementary assistance and then describe what has been accomplished for each. Among other things, please be specific about the methods you used, and the information you provided to and sought from the public.

The city held two Focus Groups with Saco residents at a research facility in Portland (ME) to explore the following using a professional moderator to facilitate the discussions:

Goal: Better understand what information about the city's services, service delivery and other city information that citizens want to hear about.

Goal: Better understand how citizens would like information provided to them from/about the city and its operations Residents were recruited by the research firm using random digit dialing. Based on the initial list of participants, the firm further recruited by adding links to the research firm from the city's website and the city's Parks and Rec website, with a "blurb" on the sites to call attention to the meetings, in order to recruit residents aged 25-34 to improve the mix.

The facilitator developed a discussion guide and used various stimuli to generate conversation:

a hand out with the City Council's vision statement;
a list of the city organization's major strategic goals and a verbal explanation of the long term and general nature of these goals;
a draft four page report describing how the city is run, costs to deliver city services, some statistical information and some performance information, general revenue and expense information, a brief narrative on how the city is doing in terms of service delivery and what its challenges for the future are, and current and coming year objectives for the City Council;
A list of each department and as summary description of its strategic objectives, with the measures to assess performance listed in summary format for each departmental objective.

Feedback from the groups ranged from the very concrete to the very general. Participants were generally very positive about living in Saco and the services residents receive from the city. They talked about quality of life, the good schools, the geographic area, the small town feel with larger town amenities, a forward thinking mayor and council, and the nice neighborhoods, in general and positive terms. About services, they mentioned liking Parks and Rec programs, feelings of safety and professional Police performance, reliable response time from Police and Fire, professional firefighting as 2 witnessed the night before, curbside recycling and garbage pickup program (mentioned by at least three participants), as well as the library, and the snowplowing and sidewalks plowing. Concerns with services included traffic and downtown parking.

The groups differed slightly on how good a fit for Saco they thought the council vision statement is, the second group mostly favoring that vision statement's narrower focus on economic development, while the first group mostly thought the vision statement too narrow and that quality of life was missing from the council vision, as well as the need to balance growth with development. Some less positive concrete comments included that there was little economic development actually going on, MERC should go, the city has stifled business in the city, there were many empty storefronts, and the city had a ways to go in terms of employment activity.

The current strategic goals were seen as generally positive by the first group, but they seemed to prefer the five new broader goals, noting that quality of life is included here; they talked about keeping business in the business parks and discussed tension between growth and other goals. They noted that education is missing in the broad goals, but it is a big draw to the city and a major part of the budget and should be included. The second group was more skeptical about the current broader goals, for instance wondering how can all this be done while taxes are kept in check? They also noted that young people are leaving the city, and the need for a happy medium so retirees aren't forced out. In reviewing the five proposed goals, they seemed positive about them, noting quality of life is huge, and community involvement fosters the "other." Both groups seemed to prefer the non linear presentation of the five proposed goals, as that addressed the concerns both groups voiced about not knowing what were the priorities among and rankings of the goals.

Overall, the four page report was viewed very positively, with the first group unanimously saying they would read it if they got it ("novel to get something like this from the city") and a majority of the second group saying the same. In the second group, the two who said they would only glance at it noted that "things seem to be going okay, I am not that concerned or interested." They generally thought it was attractive, readable, not a lot of narrative (a plus), thorough but not too detailed, they liked the financial information and the info on what services cost, easy to read, and thought it was the right length. Longer and they would not read it, shorter and it would be too superficial. On the negative side, they picked up on the use of "insider language" (TIF, unclassified, intergovernmental, new value), as that is meaningless to them; they strongly wanted some info on the schools included, regardless of what entity provides the actual service for the city, as well as wanting general stats on the city population and names of councilors, their wards and their contact info; they thought the major changes in numbers over time should be explained; and importantly that there was too much good news and not enough info on challenges the city faces and what progress toward goals has been made or not made. On a 1-10 scale, ratings were mostly 8's, with a few 9's and a 10.

Getting information from the city is currently done through the web, word of mouth, the newspaper and on TV; two people said they got the online newsletter (but did not know its name). In discussing how to get the report to residents, both groups determined that no one method would work for all residents and suggested mailing (with an option to go paperless) it, mailing it with the tax bill, posting it on the web, placing it in the paper, having it at the polls, and both discussed the difficulties of getting such info to renters.

Specific department goals and measures were the last items reviewed and were generally considered reasonable and what the participants thought was appropriate. They each picked up on specific weak summaries that had been done in order to edit the information to fit on one legal sized document, as well as specific weaknesses in some of the departmental measures and goals. Both groups talked about the consolidated voting location as a serious issue.

2. What have been the program's greatest successes? What have been the greatest challenges? If overcome, how?

This information is most valuable in immediate terms of the 4 page report and how to move that forward (content and delivery), as well as shaping conversations about what the longer version of the report should include.

As well, from this work and from prior quantitative work, the city can reasonably conclude that the fundamentals of the service delivery and how the city assesses its service delivery are on track.

The proposed strategic goals seem to better encompass the ideals these residents wish the city to pursue, but care needs to be taken to portray them not as competing or as prioritized one over the other.

The council vision has been balanced by a citizen vision, which was vetted in the quantitative research as appropriate, so the two can continue to be but be separate or, if there is the political will, work can be done to unite them.

The largest challenge in this work was getting younger residents aged 25-34 to participate, which seems to also be a population in Saco that is shrinking relative to other groups. Recruiting in this age group did not work via land lines and only one person was obtained through the website recruitment, so this needs to be addressed in any future similar work and also is an issue for any future quantitative research.

3. Has this initiative spurred changes in your performance measures, reports and/or the way programs are being managed and services are being delivered? Please explain.

The Focus Group work has clarified thoughts on changes to the 4 page report as noted, as well as to the larger Performance Measurement Report. For the longer report, the proposal is to shift away from the departmental organization of information and move toward a thematic approach. This might allow the city to trim considerable information so the report is more readable (and so more attractive and useful).

More importantly, it will present information in such a way that recognizes that citizens don't care who does what in the city; information about the city that is meaningful to citizens is about the topics they care about, such as quality of life, safety, community involvement, traffic, etc. and not about Assessing or Finance, for example, as departments. Finally, reorganizing the report thematically allows us to integrate this reporting process as part of the overall effort to better align our work toward strategic goals and prioritizing our work according to the strategic goals.

4. What has been the public's reaction to the work you've done as part of this program? Include reactions/comments from legislators, the press, others.

The participants overall expressed appreciation for the city doing this Focus Group work. That is the only public reaction on this work to date.

5. Do you see these and other initiatives to involve the public in your performance measurement, reporting and management, continuing in your government? Please describe.

Ideally, all departments will view the tape of these groups and see the free flow of information that is possible in such research work, as well as the real interest from residents about the city and the real void in terms of the information that they get from the city that is meaningful to them. Not many of the participants thought watching a council meeting on TV was that helpful to them to understand what is really going on with the city, for instance.

Otherwise, leadership of the city staff continues to want staff to pursue this reporting and other ongoing efforts to enhance community engagement. Without the Trailblazer grants, this work would not have been started; hopefully, we can continue to articulate the value of this work to the council to keep the efforts moving forward.

6. Other comments?

We plan to publish a FY2011 revised 4 page report first (before the full report) so we can provide to voters at the polls in November and then look into the cost to mail with the second half tax bill in Dec.

As well, we plan to print copies for distribution at key resident gathering places, such as the banks, library, community center, civic organizations, train station, on the web and to city list servs.