Agenda Date: 09/22/2024
Subject:
Title
2026 Resident Survey Results
Body
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From: |
James L. Becklenberg, City Manager |
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Prepared by: |
Kathleen Osher, Deputy City Manager |
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Presentations: |
Sonya Wytinck, Executive Vice President of Data and Insights, Polco |
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Kathleen Osher, Deputy City Manager |
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Jessica Bixenman, Communications & Marketing Director |
PURPOSE:
Presentation of the results of the 2026 Resident Survey.
LONG-TERM OUTCOME(S) SERVED:
Vibrant Community with a Rich Culture; Safe Community; High-Quality Governance
DISCUSSION:
Sonya Wytinck, Executive Vice President of Data & Insights at Polco will present the highlights of the 2026 Resident Survey. The 2026 survey featured updated questions better reflecting the goals of the Horizon 2027 strategic plan and Envision Littleton Comprehensive Plan, measuring progress across the five key outcome areas: Vibrant Community with a Rich Culture, Sustainable Community with Natural Beauty, Robust and Resilient Economy, Safe Community, and High-Quality Governance.
The Littleton Resident Survey remains a channel for residents to share their views with staff and officials. Conducted every two years since the 2012 baseline, the 2026 survey represents the eighth wave of this research. This year's survey underwent a more significant update than in past cycles: retaining the core trendlines that allow for comparison over time, while introducing a substantial number of new questions designed to capture emerging priorities in the community. Together, this research offers valuable data on how residents' perceptions of city service quality and community life have shifted over time and provides a means of gathering input to support planning and service implementation.
Key Highlights Include
• Littleton residents continue to rate their overall quality of life highly, with about 9 in 10 giving positive marks - a level of satisfaction that has held steady for 14 years.
• Safety remains one of Littleton's strongest suits. About 8 in 10 residents rated overall safety as excellent or good, and nearly all reported feeling safe in Downtown Littleton and in their own neighborhoods during the day.
• Respondents’ most frequently cited reasons for living in Littleton were the city’s parks, trails, and open space (71%) and residents’ satisfaction with their neighborhood (68%). More than half of respondents also highlighted Downtown Littleton (57%).
• Residents remain satisfied with the overall quality of city services, with about 8 in 10 rating them excellent or good - consistent with 2024 and 2022 results and closely aligned with how residents nationwide and across the Front Range view their own services.
• Of the 61 evaluative ratings compared between Littleton’s results from 2024 and 2026, thirteen received ratings that were statistically significantly higher than the previous survey iteration, 47 received similar ratings, and one received lower ratings.
o Of the thirteen that have increased, one notable is the higher rating for communicating regularly with community members (e.g., websites, emails or public meetings). Other higher ratings include ease of traveling by bicycle; ease of traveling by bus (RTD); snow plowing; the museum research center; Littleton as a place to work; art shows in the galleries; museum rotating exhibits; responding to citizens' emergency calls for service; crime prevention; crime solving; code compliance; and being sensitive to residents' concerns.
o One rating was lower but upon investigation economic development received a large bounce in 2024 with the reboot of a new team, overall efforts, and energy around CEDS so the 2026 rating is back in alignment with previous years. Further, economic development in Littleton continues to rank highly compared to the Front Range, ranking 2nd out of 22 peer cities.
• Residents generally view the city's performance positively across most measures of government effectiveness.
• Customer service from city employees earned the strongest ratings, with 86% agreeing that staff provide first-rate service, and about 7 in 10 agreed that the city manager is successfully running city operations and that the city follows through on what it says it will do.
• Residents gave generally positive marks to transportation options in Littleton. About 7 in 10 said driving, walking, and bicycling around the city were easy, pointing to favorable day-to-day mobility experiences.
• Residents expressed varying levels of support for potential revenue options should the city need to diversify or expand its revenue sources in the future. The most supported options were using debt financing through a voter-approved general obligation bond for specific capital projects that would not increase taxes (64% support) and creating an admissions tax on entertainment venues or ticketed events (62% support).
• Survey data reveals high community satisfaction with the City of Littleton’s local programming. All local events secured an approval rating of 80% excellent/good or higher.
• Respondents rated a wide range of communication channels used by the City of Littleton, with several traditional methods standing out as particularly effective. The Littleton Report (the City’s bi-monthly print newsletter) was viewed as the most useful source of information, with 84% of respondents rating it as very or moderately useful.
BACKGROUND:
The survey was administered using scientifically sound, rigorous methods to ensure unbiased, statistically valid, representative results for the City of Littleton. The best survey research practices were used for the resources spent to reduce possible sources of error (e.g., sampling error and non-response error). These practices included selecting all households to participate, contacting potential respondents multiple times and weighting the data to reflect the demographic profile of adults in Littleton.
Residents of all 6,319 residential addresses within the city boundaries were invited to take the survey in June 2026. Of the 6,400 invites, 4% were returned because the housing unit was vacant or the postal service was unable to deliver the survey as addressed. Of the 6,148 households that received an invitation to take the survey, 788 completed the survey providing an overall response rate of 13%.
In addition to the address-based survey, the city also conducted an open participation survey that was open to those who did not receive a mailed invitation. A total of 268 residents completed this survey, and results for this survey are provided under separate cover.
Again, as in 2024, those who visited the online survey site had the option to switch to a Spanish language version.
The final survey results will be posted on the city’s website.
Prior Actions or Discussions
Since 2012 and continuing every two years since, the City of Littleton has retained the services of Polco, formerly the National Research Center, to conduct a resident survey.
FISCAL IMPACTS:
The $24,300.00 cost of the survey was included in the 2026 Budget.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
The survey serves as a consumer report card for the city by providing residents with the opportunity to rate city services, local government, community amenities, and the quality of life in the city. The survey also provides feedback to the city on what is working well and what is not and communicates priorities for community planning and resource allocations.
Staff recommend results serve as input to identify top priorities and gaps, guide budget and resource allocation, and measure progress during the update of Horizon 2027, the city’s strategic plan.
ALTERNATIVES:
N/A