Suzette Cook
The City of Gainesville has selected 1,000 neighbors across its four districts to fill out a survey on how the city has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As we strive to lead the community through the COVID-19 Pandemic, we understand that it is more important than ever to get input from our neighbors. While much has changed during this time, we want to ensure that we can continue to meet your needs for city services as we move forward from this time of crisis,” the intro for the survey says.
“We would like to invite you to complete our City of Gainesville Neighbor Survey,” the announcement on the city’s Facebook page says.
“We will use the results of this survey to document what we are doing well and what we can improve upon. Our goal is to build a desirable future for all our neighbors. The survey will take roughly 20 minutes to complete. While it may seem like there are a lot of questions, we ask that you fill out the survey completely. This will help us in determining what issues we should prioritize in the coming years.”
Topics on the survey include quality of life, safety, priorities for the future, sense of community, parks, mobility, maintenance and utilities.
The questions ask for rankings that range between Excellent, Good, Neutral, Below Average, Poor, and Don’t Know.
It starts out with general questions about Gainesville as a place to live, work, retire and then questions get specific about topics such as safety, healthcare, education, cleanliness, and cost of living.
One section addresses the ability to trust neighbors, feeling that Gainesville is part of residents’ identity and if community problems can be solved by neighbors. While another section addresses housing issues, efforts to mitigate climate change, historic preservation efforts, recreation opportunities and addressing racism, gun violence, and drug abuse.
Another section asks about government response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the federal, state, county and city level.
The “completely anonymous” survey will be sent out May 18th and takes about 20 minutes to complete. It can be found online at www.surveygnv.com as well as in the printed version being mailed to randomly selected residents.