City of Port St. Lucie issued the following announcement on Sept. 29
For the second year in a row, the City of Port St. Lucie’s efforts to engage citizens while strategically planning for the City’s future have been recognized by two national organizations.
National Research Center (NRC) at Polco and the International City & County Management Association (ICMA) announced Port St. Lucie won the Voice of the People (VOP) Awards for Transformation in Community Engagement. The Voice of the People Awards are the only national awards that honor local governments based on feedback from residents.
Those organizations determined that Port St. Lucie demonstrated a commitment to best practices in moving our community forward, embodying the spirit of The National Community Survey™ (The NCS). In 2019, Port St. Lucie won a Voice of the People Award for Transformations in Foundations.
“We recognize these amazing communities that are shining examples of how to engage residents to improve quality of life and deepen trust and transparency,” said Nick Mastronardi, CEO of Polco.
During this difficult year especially, local government leaders are rolling up their sleeves and working tirelessly to guide their communities forward,” said Damema Mann, Director of National Engagement for Polco. “We are honored to be able to recognize these deserving communities nationally.”
The 12th annual Voice of the People Awards were presented by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and National Research Center (NRC) at Polco at ICMA’s digital conference: Unite on September 23-26, 2020.
The City of Port St. Lucie has a well-defined strategic planning process that is updated every year based on citizen input. The City’s strategic plan (www.cityofpsl.com/strategicplan) is the City’s roadmap to the future and guiding document for City staff to follow in prioritizing initiatives. The strategic planning process includes the annual National Community Survey™, a statistically-valid survey of Port St. Lucie residents, a tried and trusted community survey that provides a comprehensive and accurate picture of resident perspectives on local government services, policies, and management.
For the third year in a row, residents gave Port St. Lucie high marks in several key areas measuring its quality of life and its desirability as a place to live, according to the results of the 2020 National Community Survey™.
About eight in 10 City residents who participated in this year’s survey ranked Port St. Lucie as excellent or good in several categories including: overall quality of life and appearance, place to live, retire and raise children. However, for the second year in a row, the survey highlighted a key area of opportunity for residents: mobility and public transit. When asked, in their own words, to identify the top three priorities the City should focus on, topics relating to mobility were cited the most often. While assessments of the City's paths and walking trails were lower than average, residents had more positive perceptions of paths and walking trails in 2020. In response to this feedback, the City has focused on a number of projects to advance mobility in its Strategic Plan including adoption of the Multimodal Plan this year and is partnering with the St. Lucie County Transit Division to advance several initiatives to improve public transit.
This was the third year in a row that Port St. Lucie joined hundreds of cities across the country in conducting a survey to measure the quality of life for residents. The National Community Survey™, which was conducted by the National Research Center, Inc., is a snapshot in time showing how Port St. Lucie residents from across geographical areas feel about their city. This year’s survey was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic and these results do not consider possible changes in attitude since this crisis.
Other findings from the 2020 Survey included:
- Ratings of Port St. Lucie as a place to retire were higher than the national average. Residents gave higher marks to the city as a place to raise children in 2020 compared to 2019.
- About half gave positive scores to sense of community in Port St. Lucie, while four out of five planned to remain in the community for the next five years and would recommend living here to others.
- As in past years, residents identified safety and economy as two important areas of focus for the next two years.
Results from the surveys have been utilized by the Council in setting several strategic priorities, including selecting the projects that will be paid for with the new half-cent sales tax and the creation of the We Love Lucie Concert Series.
To read more about the results of the 2020 Survey, please visit www.cityofpsl.com/citizensurvey.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Port St. Lucie
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