- February 19, 2025
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The town of Longboat Key’s annual Citizens Survey is starting soon.
Residents can expect letters about the survey popping into mailboxes around Feb. 6-8. On the letters will be a link to the online survey with an individual access code.
The online survey will be available for residents to complete from Feb. 10 to Feb. 28. The responses to the survey are entirely confidential, and the survey should take about 10-15 minutes to complete.
“The survey is a major contributor of ideas of priorities from the residents,” Mayor Ken Schneier said.
In the survey are a variety of questions about town issues in different formats like multiple-choice, checkboxes and open-ended.
The open-ended questions in particular typically generate good discussion and ideas. Schneier said all the commissioners read the survey results to some degree, and he makes it a point to take a careful look through the open-ended responses.
Schneier said the results of the survey sometimes show that one person’s voice can make a difference.
“You don’t need 30 people to say something for it to become a good idea. There may be one or three people…and it rings a bell, and it leads to some action,” Schneier said.
The results of the survey are then compiled in a report and made publicly available on April 2 before the town commission discusses them at the April 7 meeting.
On April 7, the commission will also hold a goals and objectives workshop prior to the regular meeting. The workshop gives citizens and stakeholder groups an opportunity to present what they feel are town priorities to the commission.
All of this data is collected and then discussed by the commissioners at the annual strategic planning retreat on April 21. The survey results and discussions from the goals and objectives workshop help to guide the commission’s discussion at the planning retreat, Schneier said.
The priorities laid out by commissioners from the retreat are then incorporated into the upcoming fiscal year budget.