City of Las Cruces conducting a community-wide survey to improve city services

The City of Las Cruces is conducting a community-wide survey that asks residents how they rate Las Cruces.

Jamey Rickman, Community Liasion for the City of Las Cruces says it’s essential to planning the future.

“We use that in conjunction with other methods of public input,” Rickman said.

The city is mailing out surveys to 1200 residents, all randomly selected. The survey, created by the National Research Center, includes 17 different categories.

Residents rate the quality of life, safety, education and a long list of services, such as traffic enforcement and street improvements. Residents will rate the services on a scale of 1-5. The results will give officials a better idea of what areas need improvement.

The National Research Center will compile the results. The city will analyze them.

Rickman says along with other methods of feedback they gather, the results from the survey may influence the city’s budget.

“If people are willing to have more amenities like more parks or better improvements to streets or things like that, and are willing to possibly go for tax increases or that sort of thing, that will certainly determine what our needs are for the budget.”

The city also mailed surveys in 2012 and 2013. Rickman adds it’ll be interesting to compare the results.

Some residents feel the survey will serve as a good tool for closing the communication gap with the city.

“A lot of times the government doesn’t seem to care much about how people think,” one resident said.

The first batch of surveys were mailed out on the 12th, the rest will be mailed out on the 19th.