Prince George contributed $10,000 to a survey on the public's satisfaction with municipal spending, services and quality of life.
The city funds went toward the printing and postage of 4,500 eight-page surveys, according to Mike Davis, manager of communications and citizen engagement.
Unfortunately only 363 surveys were returned.
On Dec. 13, the University of Northern British Columbia's Institute for Social Research and Evaluation (ISRE) presented a report to council on the study, conducted in partnership with the city.
The big question that arose was: What can be done to get more public involvement?
"It's possible people are surveyed out," Shannon Wagner, ISRE director. "Though it doesn't seem to matter how many surveys we send out, we always get about 10 per cent send back."
The costly mail-outs were supposed to get more people involved, said Wagner. The random mailing was also meant to increase the respondent demographic.
"The goal is to have a higher distribution in age, working status and income, so that there is a better reflection of the Prince George public," she said.
However Coun. Sheri Green was not satisfied with the diversity, and voiced concerns over the fact that 96 per cent of respondents were Caucasian.
Wagner said the biggest draw back to the survey is the cost.
"We're not sure what the best way is to increase diversity, but we are pursing different avenues," she said.
Davis stressed that the survey is not the city's only means of assessing the public's satisfaction. He added the ISRE's contribution is valuable despite the low respondent turnout.
"It's also important to note the amount of volunteer work Dr. Wagner conducts for us on her own time and the partnership we have with UNBC," said Davis.
"We could easily make a survey, leave it online for a year and have thousands of response. However, there is methodology behind this."
This year's eight per cent return may have been due to technical glitches involved with changing the survey to an online format this year, she said.
Wagner added incentives don't seem to increase response, since that would undermine the anonymity valued by the public.
The public's satisfaction with municipal services has stayed relatively the same, with the top five most favoured services being fire protection, arenas, library, water supply and the aquatic centre. Road and street maintenance showed the least satisfaction, along with land use planning, dust and weed control, snow control and economic initiatives.
The full report is available on the city's website.
