The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
We’d like more jobs, though
For the second time, Gunnison County contracted with the National Citizen Survey to find out just what county residents think of life here. County staff shared the results with the Board of County Commissioners last week, which in many ways reflected the topics du jour in recent headlines: results for economic sustainability, affordable housing, land use and preserving our way of life in the Valley all stood out—for good and for bad.
First and foremost: We love where we live. Eighty-four percent of respondents said they were somewhat or very likely to recommend living in Gunnison County, and 81 percent said they were somewhat or very likely to remain here for the next five years. That’s an increase of 7 percent and 8 percent, respectively, from the first time the survey was conducted in 2009.
Ninety-five percent of respondents rated the quality of the natural environment as excellent or good, and 81 percent reported excellent or good preservation of natural areas like open space and farmlands. As valley residents, we also like how easy it is to ride our bicycles. We spend less time commuting than benchmark communities, and we’re fairly satisfied with snow removal—an important factor in mountain towns.
We’re not as satisfied, however, with the availability of affordable housing or the range of available housing: only 23 percent rated affordable housing as excellent or good, and 28 percent rated the variety of housing options as excellent or good. Nearly 40 percent of respondents pay more than a third of their income for housing, although that figure is down from 49 percent in 2009.
Only 11 percent of respondents said that Gunnison County has excellent or good employment opportunities, and 29 percent rated it as an excellent or good place to work. Responses also indicated that 92 percent saw job growth as too slow and only 16 percent said economic development within the county was excellent or good. Yet even with the frustrations, the survey showed improvement in most areas since 2009.
“The big story this year is that comparisons are more valuable because we have something to compare to,” said county finance director Linda Nienhueser, who spearheaded this year’s survey.
“Most of the measures improved some—really almost all of them, especially services and things like that,” said county manager Matthew Birnie. “Probably one of the worst measures we have was the overall direction—which I remember when Crested Butte did this in 2007 they saw a similar result. So that’s not a very strong result for us, but even that was an improvement over 2009. That was encouraging to me that in this environment of economic distress, and quite frankly anti-government sentiment, that for the most part we did better this year than in 2009.”
Respondents rated as favorable the overall direction that Gunnison County is taking at 42 percent, up from 35 percent in 2009. Yet many of the specific county services received favorable ratings above 80 and 90 percent. Ninety percent felt safe in the county downtown areas after dark, up from 84 percent previously. Sheriff services were rated as excellent or good by 82 percent of residents, up from 73 percent. Even lower ratings were on the rise, such as the availability of affordable housing, which received a 23 percent positive rating, up from 17 percent.
The survey was mailed to 1,200 addresses within Gunnison County, including second-home owners, with a return rate of about 35 percent. The National Citizen Survey conducts the survey, and the county does not handle the data.
The inclusion of second-home owners did raise some questions from the Board of County Commissioners, but Birnie pointed out that they make up a significant portion of the community.
“I don’t see that there would be any value in excluding [second-home owners],” Birnie said. “They are 60 percent of our local property tax, and they consume our services. Our community is significantly made up of folks who don’t live here.”
The survey is intended to understand the entire community’s opinions and perceptions. The key in interpreting the results is determining where responses indicate a need to improve a county service or communication with the community.
“Say it’s road maintenance, you could be doing by all objective road standards a perfect job, but if folks don’t think you’re doing a perfect job you still have a problem. You’ve got something to address, maybe it’s not road maintenance, maybe it’s communication,” Birnie said.
He said that recycling—which only 61 percent of respondents placed at good or excellent—could fall into that category. Residents have high expectations, but they might also be unaware of existing services. Birnie listed the recycling trailer in Crested Butte South as an example; it has been popular with residents but most do not realize the trailer is a county service.
“I think the issue now is trying to bring these results back to management and figure out what we can do to better inform the public and use [the results] to make decisions,” said Nienhueser.
“One thing we did after receiving results that we hadn’t done before is cross-reference with all the department’s strategic business plans, and where appropriate … adding those performance measures to all relevant departments,” added Birnie.
The complete results of the survey are available on the county website at http://www.gunnisoncounty.org/citizen_survey.
