Master Plan Musings

Early morning musings. Assuming I have done some math correctly: There are approximately 6,500 households in Bay Village. 1,200 or roughly 18.5% received the random Master Plan survey. The expectation is 30% of those 1,200 will return the surveys. This estimate means 360 opinions will be tallied. If that projection is accurate, then only 5.5 % of 6,500 households will have input. I believe there will be a better response than 30%. Residents are eager to participate. Nonetheless…

Imagine if 6,500 houses could have received the survey – with an expected 30% return, then 1,950 households would have had a voice. Even on the low end of expectations with typical survey responses of 14% - that could have been 910 opinions versus 360. For the 1999 survey 50% of the recipients responded. Imagine 50% of 6,500 households giving input.

I asked the county planner if it wouldn’t be better to use an online survey as some residents had suggested so the city and county could have received greater feedback. The response: “We worked with the City of Bay Village to devise a survey method that would be both useful and cost-effective--and that method was a random sample of printed surveys. We have undertaken online surveys in the past; however, the price of designing and distributing both an online and in-print survey precluded it in this case. This is in addition to inherent problems of an online survey which include that we cannot ensure that online survey-takers are Bay Village residents, we cannot ensure that people will not take the survey multiple times, and many people do not have access to the internet. In past surveys, we have found that residents prefer paper to electronic surveys 2 to 1. Due to the scope and budget of the project, we can only send out surveys to the random sample of population.”

(November 10, 2015)