Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Compiling responses from 155 residents, the Palouse Planning commission has finished its community survey, the first in seven years.
Jim Fielder, commission chair, presented results to the city council Dec. 10.
“We were pleased,” Fielder said, noting it was the first time a town survey was done online, with subsequent technical issues with the web address.
“Overall it shows very positive feelings about Palouse and the direction things are going. We didn't feel there were any surprises.”
Among areas covered were quality of life, town characteristics from appearance to quality of schools, access to affordable housing, cultural and community activities, safety and openness of people.
Things noted by a significant number of respondents as a “major issue” included growth, rundown houses and buildings and overrun lots.
Mayor-elect Chris Cook noted a few areas of the survey, such as enforcement of city code, recycling and affordable housing.
“Law enforcement overall was painted in a positive light,” said Cook. “On the right amount of growth, I think it shows we're on the right track.”
Enforcement of city code referred to rundown buildings and properties.
“The community has indicated this as an area for attention, and I want to honor that,” Cook said. “I think we have to be cautious.”
For the past five years, on the survey for evaluating growth, population growth scored in the majority for the “right amount” category while business/retail growth and job growth scored more in the “too slow” or “much too slow” categories.
For civic activity, a majority of respondents reported going to an event at the Palouse Community Center in the past year between three to 12 times or one to two times.
For volunteering time in Palouse, 75 percent had done so, from one to two times to 24 plus times in the past year.
“We crafted the questions to be specifically about Palouse,” said Fielder.
In city services, the survey showed 65 percent ranked police services as “good” or “excellent,” with 15 percent “neutral” and 16 percent “poor” or “very poor.”
Fire services ranked at 86 percent as “good” or “very good.”
For the question of “should the city consider the issue of climate change as it plans for the future?” the answers “strongly agree” and “agree” accounted for a slim majority, followed by a combination of “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “neutral” and “don't know.”
For the question, “What is the single most important issue facing Palouse? – 23 respondents wrote comments on affordable housing/housing growth, 22 wrote about sewer/water concerns and 16 on growth of the city/to not lose its “small town feel.”
Of the survey's respondents, 51 percent have lived in the town for more than 20 years, with the rest split evenly in the two-to-five year category, six-to-10 and 11-20 years. Six percent of those responding have lived in Palouse less than two years.
Ninety percent own their residence, with 43 percent of renters reported that they are looking to buy a home in Palouse.
Of individual households, for survey responders, 56 percent have two people, 15 percent three people, 14 percent one person and single digits for four people or more.
The largest groups of survey participants, by age, were 65+ at 31 percent and 35-44, at 20 percent.
The total population of Palouse is 1,060.
“We've got good feedback, but we want to get better at delivery,” said Cook. “Any good survey, mid-30 percent (of total population response) is what you're after. That's part of what doing this survey was for, to build a template to do it more often.”
He suggested future efforts may be every two to four years.
The survey was collected in May and June.
Questionnaires were filled out through Survey Monkey. Helpers were made available at computers at the Palouse Library, as well as paper copies handed out at city hall.
During the summer, members of the planning commission spoke about the survey at a community senior lunch and sent out reminders to the 525 households which receive water bills in Palouse.
The planning commission will now begin work on updating the city's comprehensive plan.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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