It came as a great vote of confidence in the work that we are doing together that I was permitted to run unopposed for a second term as City Councilmember. The lack of an opponent freed me up to try out some new ideas with my campaign, such as spending funds on a voter registration drive instead of on fighting an opponent.
One of the projects my campaign undertook was an in-depth survey of how CD13 residents feel about the issues confronting the district. We received hundreds of responses to the survey. They came in from every neighborhood. I'll post the full results to the survey later this month, but here's a teaser:
- 49.87% of you feel that the city is on the right track (48.82% feel that the city is on the wrong track)
- 64.18% of you feel that your neighborhood is on the right track (33.58% of you feel that your neighborhood is on the wrong track).
You ranked the issues confronting the district in this order:
- Addressing crime and gangs
- Cleaning up graffiti, trash and illegal dumping
- Improving neighborhood services (i.e. street paving, sidewalk repairs, tree trimming)
- Providing affordable housing
- Improving education and schools
- Relieving traffic congestion
- Cutting wasteful government spending
- Attracting jobs and economic opportunities
- Cleaning up the air and water
- Building new parks and libraries
- 83.16 % favor a proposal that requires developers to set aside 10% of all new construction for affordable housing, 16.84% oppose
- 87.47% have a favorable impression of the effort to clean up business and shopping areas, 11.43 % have an unfavorable impression
- 82.74 % feel that graffiti is an important problem, 16 % feel that graffiti is not a major concern
- 52.19% favor a plan to raise trash fees or city sales tax to boost public safety initiatives, 47.18 % oppose this plan
- 43.93 % were aware that you can report bulky trash and graffiti by calling 311, 56.07 % were not aware