What decisions should Portsmouth leaders make? Surveys could seek out more public opinions

PORTSMOUTH — An initiative by City Councilor John Tabor to improve community engagement and get a better sense of how residents want officials to address major projects received strong support this week.

The City Council voted unanimously Monday in favor of Tabor’s idea to use new technology to conduct citywide surveys on major and often expensive projects.

“I feel the more public input we have up front, good data on what our public residents feel, the more public confidence we have later when the decisions are made,” Tabor said during Monday's council meeting.

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Portsmouth's city staff will now look into how the city could use companies to conduct separate city surveys on how the public wants Community Campus used, what residents' priorities are in terms of recreation activities and how American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds should be spent, and then report back to the council.

The City Council voted previously to spend $10 million to purchase Community Campus, but has not conducted any formal public outreach about how residents want the facility used.

“It’s taxpayer-owned property, it’s taxpayer money that we’re going to use to develop it into the years and future,” Tabor said about the facility and the 34 acres around it. “So why shouldn’t we ask the taxpayers what they’d like to see there?”

Companies city staff are considering for the surveys, including FlashVote for example, survey residents by using a variety of techniques including phone calls, emails and texts, Tabor said.

Conducting 'broad surveys' in Portsmouth

“If you think about these various decisions that we have to make, if we can get a broad survey, 300, 400 participants” that can help the council as they make major decisions, Tabor said.

“Let’s take the example of Community Campus: How do young people feel about recreation out there, how do young people feel about affordable housing, how do parents of school children feel about that as a location for additional educational opportunities?” Tabor said about questions residents could be asked in the surveys.

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After talking to staff about partnering with a firm to conduct the Community Campus survey, he thought a similar approach would work for recreation and ARPA monies.

He noted the city is in the midst of conducting a recreation study currently, but a citywide survey could boost the number of residents who weigh in on recreation priorities for Portsmouth.

“I think it can help us engage the public, those who take the survey will want to participate more, we can get not just opinions but actual partnerships with our residents, who will become interested and involved,” Tabor said. “I hope that it’s a way that we can find some innovative platforms to reach out to the public and engage them.”

Hearing from residents across the city called important

During an interview Wednesday, Tabor said FlashVote is “one of a couple options we have in terms of companies we could work with.”

He likes it because not only do they conduct surveys but “they have a box for  comments.”

“The comments would go directly to the City Council,” Tabor said, and potentially create new ideas and approaches the council can adopt.

“It’s really easy to use on your cell phone and we can get people that we don’t usually hear from, parents who have kids, people working night jobs,” Tabor said.

FlashVote would create a group of about 300 to 400 people to respond to surveys if they’re ultimately chosen to partner with the city, he said.

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“Their pitch to residents is 'Would you be willing to take a few moments a month to help your community?'” Tabor said. “They recruit a panel to weigh in on issues who represent the demographics of the community.”

FlashVote explains that participants “decide how to interact with (the company) by choosing email, text and voice options.”

“You provide anonymous inputs and decide what information about yourself and your activities that other users can see,” the company states on its website. ”You decide how much (or how little) to participate but the more input you give, the more you make your voice heard and help make your community better.”

In return, governments FlashVote works with “get statistically valid community input in 48 hours,” according to the company’s website.

“Governments get the most useful input that residents can provide because FlashVote does professional quality control on every survey question,” the company added.

Councilors support Tabor's idea

City Councilor Kate Cook called Tabor’s initiative “a really important proposal.”

“The reason I think it’s so important is when we sit here as city councilors and we hear public comment, we usually only here comment from people who are unhappy about changes or don’t want us to move forward with certain issues,” she said. “We rarely hear proposals and people coming forward asking us to consider how do we want to develop a property like Community Campus.”

That’s unfortunate, she said, “because it’s very hard as a city councilor then to understand what the viewpoints are across the city.”

“This gives us actual data and it’s important to have real data points when making decisions as a city councilor,” Cook said. “Because you want to reflect the views of your city as a whole, rather than a small group of interested parties.”

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Mayor Deaglan McEachern praised the idea, saying participation in citywide surveys would give people “skin in the game.”

City Councilor Rick Blalock, who also serves on the Recreation Commission, says the commission, too, has sought “more opportunities to engage the community.”

“It seems like we would get special interest groups that would show up in small numbers and be very vocal, and we felt like we weren’t getting a true sense of what the community wants as a whole,” he said. “So any opportunity to engage the community, any chance for us to listen to them, I think it is very appropriate because that’s our job to listen to the community and represent them.”

Tabor is optimistic he could get a report back from city staff at the next council meeting, which could include possible companies for Portsmouth to work with on the surveys.