CCP 03-10-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I Decision Resources, Ltd. f' February, 1997 I information about City government activities. In the past, the city newsletter dwarfed local newspapers as the effective carrier of local information. I A solid eighty-eight percent of the residents reported receiving the monthly "Arden Hills Notes" newsletter, while seventy-seven percent regularly read it. Most residents had no suggestions for changes or improvements in its format or coverage, although a small number would prefer I longer, more in-depth articles. This reach percent placed the current city newsletter in the third quartile of suburban publications, a major change from its first place in the 1990 study. I Electronic media ran a distant second, Forty-eight percent of the sampled households reported currently subscribing to cable television. Twenty-four percent of the households on cable television at least "occasionally" watched local government access Channel 16. Thirteen percent I of the subscribers at least "occasionally" viewed City Council Meeting cablecasts. The effective reach of these telecasts, then, was about six percent ofthe households in the community. Among I those not subscribing to cable television, only fourteen percent reported awareness of the free "Universal Service" offered by the Cable Company. Ie Sixty-nine percent of the households in Arden Hills owned a personal computer; fifty-four percent had modems installed on them. Among modem-equipped respondents, fifty-two percent were at least "somewhat likely" to use electronic mail to seek information from the City of Arden I Hills and sixty percent were similarly likely to use a City of Arden Hills "Homepage." With a well-publicized computer access, the City could expect about one-quarter of its residents to utilize the service, I Summary and Conclusions: I In general, Arden Hills citizens remained very satisfied with the community. The key issue facing decision-makers in the future, as it was in the 1990 benchmark study, was balancing the I needs and wants of citizens with their concerns as taxpayers, particularly in the provision of city services. In fact, this issue has only gained significance during the interim years. While residents were not reflexively anti-taxation, in fact, tax hostility was found to be somewhat more limited in I the current study, they were inclined to view proposals very critically and reject most of those tested; the burden of proof is clearly on proponents. The community continued to avoid many of I development's most undesirable consequences which have occurred in neighboring areas. But, residents seemed not as keen about an increased effort by the City Council on development issues, except for the TCAAP site. If the present pace and range of development continues, most I residents will accept growth as an inevitable part of the evolution of the city. While the results in this study reflect several of the general trends occurring in the Metropolitan .. Page 9 I ---