Participate in the 2024 National Community Survey™

Published on January 24, 2024

The City of Port St. Lucie relies on the voices of its residents to guide strategic planning, development of new services and much more.

To better understand the needs and desires of our citizens, the City is partnering with the National Research Center (NRC) and Polco to conduct the National Community Survey™ for the seventh consecutive year.

The NRC has begun to mail these important surveys to a statistically valid sample of residents. If residents receive one in the mail, City leaders request that they please take the time to fill it out and return the survey. The information gathered from this survey and the annual Citizen Summit inform the City Council as they update the City’s strategic plan and goals.

For those who do not receive a mail-in survey, the NRC will make an online option available to all residents atwww.cityofpsl.com/communitysurvey. The survey will be available online beginning Feb. 3 and closing Feb. 27.

The survey focuses on community livability and includes questions about the quality of life in Port St. Lucie, demographics, rating of local government services and residents’ use of services. Polco’s highly skilled team of social science researchers have extensive experience and insight into local governments. Once the survey is complete, Polco’s team will provide the City with comparative data from other local governments across the country.

Data from the survey will assist the Mayor, City Council and staff in making operational, strategic and policy decisions. The City will also host its annual Citizen Summit on Feb. 3 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Community Center, located at 2195 SE Airoso Blvd., to further gather in-depth feedback from residents.

Insights gathered from past Community Surveys and Citizen Summits have directly led to important community goals, initiatives and changes, including:

• Road improvement projects that were funded by the voter-approved Half-Cent Sales Tax, such as the Floresta Drive Corridor and St. Lucie West Boulevard, were prioritized by the City Council based on input from the survey and summit.
• Key findings from previous surveys showed mobility continues to be a challenge for the City. As a result, the City adopted a new plan that features pedestrian-friendly roadways, additional traffic calming and the development of new sidewalks, bikeways and walking paths. Resident satisfaction in paths and walking trails has grown each year as those improvements have been implemented.
• The development of upcoming projects such as Pioneer Park at the Port District, Tradition Regional Park and Torino Regional Park are being designed with input from the survey and summit.

This year’s survey will continue to ask questions that can provide residents’ insights into specific topics, such as whether they would be willing to pay more to have trash collection twice a week, to more general observations such as their top three priorities for the City.

Operating a high-performing government organization is a key strategic goal of the Mayor and City Council, and this survey is an important way the City is working toward that goal. The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has identified conducting surveys for data-driven decisions as a leading practice for local governments to pursue in evaluating their performance, enhancing their communications with the community and helping with decision making.

The City of Port St. Lucie’s efforts to engage residents in decision making has been recognized nationally by ICMA and the NRC at Polco as a past recipient of the Voice of the People Award, the only national awards that honor local governments based on feedback from residents.