McMinnville Conducting Public Trust Survey To Gather Input On Services

McMinnville started a Public Trust Survey Monday to get resident input on city activities.

City Stormwater Manager Lyndon Bussell will be overseeing the survey for the city, which runs through January 1. You can find the survey online at the city website. Bussell said the plan for the survey came about earlier this year during a Strategic Planning Session

“When you hear public trust survey you probably think it is as simple as, ‘hey do you trust us?'” Bussell said. “It’s not something that simple. You know, we broke it down by departments. Not only is it broken down by departments, it’s broken down by different levels of trust.”

Bussell said the city would use the information gathered from the surveys to identify shortcomings specific departments have when it comes to trust from the public. He said the city can then encourage and coach that department to change the way they interact with the public.

“Our goal is to be able to find these, not just which department, but broken down more, as in what part of trust is that department lacking in. You know, we talked about transparency but there’s also reliability, there’s also quality of services,” Bussell said. “We want people to know we want to improve on this. We want people to know this means a lot to us as the city.”

Bussell said the city will be out in the community with paper versions of the survey as well. The survey period ends January 1.

“We saw this as a way to knock it out, get it going, and something we can analyze for 2024,” Bussell said “So we can have all year to prepare and get the departments on board for the 2024 year.”

Bussell said it should only take about a month to go through the data collected by the surveys. He said he hopes citizens do the survey and take it seriously because it is one way they can be heard.

“I know that there are some citizens out there that probably feel like the public works department or some other department isn’t being up front with them about what’s going on and things like that, and this is a way for them to really express that and really let us know,” Bussell said. “We are going to be taking every comment to heart. We are going to be sharing it with elected officials, the directors, the city administrator. I mean every little thing that people say in this, you know, is going to have an impact.”