City to focus on improving traffic and pedestrian pathways

The results of Southlake’s 2017 Citizen Satisfaction Survey are in. In this survey sent once every two years, nine out of 10 residents reported satisfaction with city services. In addition, 84 percent of those surveyed said their community had improved or stayed the same. City Manager Shana Yelverton said at the Feb. 6 City Council meeting that the survey is used to help the city develop city programs and plans. “We might identify some capital projects, and as the departments prepare business plans and work plans, the citizen satisfaction survey plays a very prominent role in what they plan to do as a department going forward,” she said. “So the survey gets used in a variety of ways with the idea that we want to be responsive to what our residents want.” To do this Southlake focuses on what it calls gap issues—or areas that scored low in satisfaction on the survey but high on the importance of the item. “We take the importance of a service and the satisfaction of the service, and take the difference between the two,” Assistant to the City Manager Lauren LaNeave said. The 2017 survey had two gap issues emerge: managing traffic congestion and providing pedestrian pathways, sidewalks and trails. These two issues are consistent with results from the 2015 survey as well, LaNeave said. But the number of these gap issues has decreased over time, she said. The 2011 survey reported there were 11 gap issues. This decreased to three in 2013, three again in 2015 and now two in 2017. Southlake citizens said the top three most important services Southlake provides include police, fire and emergency services, respectively. In turn, residents were also most satisfied with the way these services are provided in Southlake. New questions on this survey involved residents’ engagements with each other. Survey results were compared against state and national averages, and indicated that Southlake residents trust their neighbors and exchange favors more often. “These might seem like weird questions, but they are important to know about residents’ social connectivity, which is an indicator of citizen engagement,” LaNeave said. LaNeave also said the city did well in providing services to its residents. Residents were asked about their interactions with city staff in the survey, and results showed residents agreed most with requests being directed to the correct department and the employee representing the city in a positive manner. LaNeave said moving forward, the city will focus on closing its two gap issues while continuing to provide excellent customer service. “We continue to work harder and we’ll get [the gap issues] down,” Mayor Laura Hill said.