Councillor Bass says citizen satisfaction survey can gauge public concern, offer education

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops City Coun. Dale Bass is chair of the governance and service excellence select committee, which will on Tuesday (April 16) meet to form a working group to develop the 2024 citizen satisfaction survey.

Bass said unrest at city hall might serve in a roundabout way to improve community engagement in the survey.

“There’s an anger out there about what the city is doing and it would be nice if we could quantify that,” Bass said. “It’s so easy to blow it off as, ‘Oh, it’s just Trumpism, populism, angry people,’ but there may actually be some legitimate concerns within some of the expressions we’re hearing.”

The purpose of the citizen satisfaction survey is to gauge the public’s needs, concerns, priorities and overall satisfaction with the city’s service levels, according to a city report.

In the past, the survey has been conducted once every four years and usually after a municipal election, with data used to influence the four-year strategic plan.

Council recently approved the select committee’s recommendation for staff to implement the survey on a biannual basis, with the next one to be completed this fall by Forum Research.

“I think there’s value in getting data more frequently, particularly with this council as we’re moving forward with different and bigger ideas,” Bass said. “Build Kamloops, for example, that’s a whole other issue and I think we need to gauge the public’s confidence in it as we move forward.

“Perhaps it’s my reporter background, but I have an issue when we take four years to assess something. This is establishing a baseline of data.”

Bass said the survey is also a chance for residents to learn about the function of municipal government.

“Most people have no idea how a municipal government works,” she said. “They’re not taught.

“Some people grumble that (on-leave City of Kamloops CAO] David Trawin thinks he runs the city. Well, he actually does. He’s in charge of everybody who provides your water, sewer, roads, buses, everything. And people don’t seem to understand that, so any time we can engage with them in some way, it’s going to be helping to educate them.”

The most recent citizen satisfaction survey was conducted in 2022 by Forum Research, using interviews after making telephone calls to randomly-selected numbers.

Eighty-three per cent of respondents felt quality of life is good. That number was on par with other Canadian municipalities, but down from 95 per cent in 2019.

In 2022, respondents felt quality of life was worsening considerably in homelessness and poverty (46 per cent) and crime (45 per cent).

Those numbers were up significantly from 2019 (14 per cent and 19 per cent, respectively).

In 2022, 64 per cent of respondents noted life had gotten worse in Kamloops since 2019.

Bass and councillors Katie Neustaeter, Bill Sarai and Nancy Bepple (alternate) are on the governance and service excellence select committee.

“Being in my sixth year on council, the tone of the community has changed significantly and you’re seeing that in a lot of municipalities,” Bass said. “The public is, I wouldnt say more engaged, but they are more aware of what the city council is doing.”