The City biennial PRIORITIES SURVEY has been completed for 2011. The survey has been administered since 1996 and serves as an information source to measure and improve services. This year, approximately 1,900 randomly selected households were asked to complete the survey and over 500 residents responded.

Results of the 2011 Priorities Survey are scheduled to be posted to the City’s website and presented to the City Council in January 2012. In the meantime, here are some of the preliminary findings of the survey:

• residents value St. Charles as a place to live,
• communication with residents is viewed positively,
• opinions regarding the vitality of downtown have improved.

In fact, 96.4% of respondents rated St. Charles as a “good” or “excellent” place to live.  The percentage of respondents that rated St. Charles as an “excellent” place to live increased by 11.4% from the 2009 survey.

Preliminary results also show that:

• 77% of respondents rated the city’s communication efforts as “good” or “excellent.” This represents a 6% increase from 2009.
• 91% of respondents believe it is important to have a welcoming and pleasing downtown.
• 70% of respondents believe the downtown has improved, an increase of 1% from 2009.

Additional data from the survey results shows that:

• 70% of respondents believe that additional retail businesses are needed in St. Charles.
• 30% of respondents rated traffic circulation for trips across the Fox River as “poor” or “very poor.” The intersection of IL 31 and IL 64 was cited numerous times as a difficult area to navigate.
• East Main Street was identified as an area of concern with over 40% of respondents rating the appearance of the area as “poor” or “very poor.”

Thank you to all residents who participated in the survey and, more importantly, thank you for your positive feedback on the services that the City provides.

Stay tuned for the full results of the 2011 Priorities Survey!