Politics & Government

Survey Says ... Residents, Businesses Largely Satisfied in Lake Forest

The City Council will be presented with the findings from a biennial poll of people living here.

The vast majority of residents are pleased with the services provided by the city of Lake Forest, but many would like to see continued focus on traffic improvements and the economy, a survey commissioned by the City Council says.

Tuesday's council meeting will feature a presentation by Encinitas-based True North Research, showing the results of a survey of residents and business owners about their satisfaction with Lake Forest.

The quality of life in Lake Forest is excellent or good, said 96 percent of residents surveyed in 2010, as compared to 93.4 surveyed in 2008.

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"Lake Forest residents and businesses are not only one of the most satisfied communities that True North has ever encountered, their levels of satisfaction continue to grow as the city finds ways to improve and refine its performance over time," the survey authors wrote in their report.

When asked the open-ended question "What do you feel is the most important issue facing residents of Lake Forest?" a plurality of respondents—28.3 percent—said they couldn't think of anything. Traffic congestion was the next most-popular answer at 14.6 percent, followed by the local economy and jobs at 13.2 percent, crime and public safety at 11.1 percent and education at 7.4 percent.

Find out what's happening in Lake Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Among business owners and managers asked an open-ended question about the important issues facing the business community of Lake Forest, the largest group—29.1 percent—said they couldn't think of anything, followed by 14.3 percent citing local and national economic concerns, and 13.1 percent mentioning taxes and fees.

In its 116-page report, True North noted that while the percentage of people happy with city services has increased slightly over the past decade—going from 89 percent for residents and 88 percent for businesss in 2000 to 91 percent for residents and 90 percent for businesses in 2010—the intensity of that satisfaction has risen more dramatically. The percentage of residents who said they were "very satisfied" with the city's performance rose from 45 percent in 2000 to 57 percent in 2010, and the rise for business managers was from 40 percent to 63 percent.

The survey touched on aspects of the city from how City Hall communicates with residents to how people feel about police services and community services. A portion of the survey devoted to gauging what people want to see at a recreation center that is planned to be built found that the demand for "community activities and special events" was nearly tied with demand for "first aid and CPR classes."

The city requested that True North include questions about neighborhood-specific issues for the 2010 survey, given that some Lake Forest home tracts are at about 30 years old and may be facing the issues that come with aging buildings and infrastructure, said Deputy City Manager Debra Rose. For the 31.1 percent of citizens who said that "neighborhood issues" impact their quality of life, the largest group—22.8 percent—voiced concerns about parking.

The resident survey was given over the phone between Nov. 11 and Dec. 10 to 400 randomly selected residents who are registered to vote. Two hundred randomly selected business owners and managers were surveyed by phone between Dec. 20 and Jan. 10. The firm said in its report that it used statistical methods to select samples that would be representative of the Lake Forest population as a whole.

Past survey results have been used to determine budget priorities, capital improvement projects, outreach efforts and staff goals, Rose said.

The survey report can be viewed here. The council meeting where the survey will be discussed is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at .


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