Leader of survey team points to years of data already collected on specific issues
During an April 22 discussion with the University of South Florida (USF) associate professor who oversees Sarasota County Government’s annual Citizen Opinion Survey, commissioners suggested more focus on residents’ views of how the county should deal with traffic concerns, along with supplementing questions about growth and development.
The board members also agreed that they would like questions on the 2025 survey relating to their plans for 2026 referenda on a new jail that could cost approximately $700 million and the extension of the county’s Land Acquisition Program. (See the related jail article in this issue.)
Jamie Carson, director of the county’s Communications Department, introduced the discussion as part of the board’s regular meeting on April 22 in downtown Sarasota. She noted that the group that handles the annual survey invites the commissioners’ proposals for new questions on topics.
“This will be our 34th year [of the survey],” Carson pointed out. “That allows for a legacy in trends and in data.”
Commissioner Teresa Mast was the first to offer her thoughts, telling USF Associate Professor Joshua Scacco, “The way that the questions are asked sometimes, I think, are too open-ended …”
For example, she said, instead of asking survey takers their stance on growth in the community, a question could ask whether they are familiar with the fact that the county has been adding 12,000 residents a year. “ ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ ” she told Scacco.
Another question could ask whether those taking the survey are aware that the number of permits for new single-family homes “that are pulled every year are approximately 5,000?” Again, she pointed out, she was looking for a “Yes” or a “No.”
Then, building on those answers, Mast continued, another question could be “Do you feel like we’re keeping up with the demand for growth?”
Acknowledging that Scacco and his team “are experts in how you communicate [the topics],” Mast added, “What I think is so vital is the ability” to set out facts. “Everybody has a different idea in their head of what they think growth is.”
Sometimes, Mast said, she finds the survey answers to be skewed because the respondents do not have the facts.
Scacco explained that the survey includes a variety of questions, some of which focus on residents’ awareness of issues, while others are what he called “knowledge questions.”
The way the team has handled the type of question Mast had addressed, he said, has been to ask survey takers’ views of the most important challenge in the county. Over the past five years, he noted, “The Growth and Development [topic] has very much outstripped” the prior trend of residents saying they have perceived no problems.
Referring again to Mast’s proposal, Scacco continued, “There are ways to potentially get at this,” as with questions about traffic and workforce housing. In regard to specific statistics, he added, the team could ask about respondents’ expectations regarding housing supply compared to county growth.
No question of that type has been included on a survey, Scacco noted. “We could absolutely take a look at ways in which we could get at some of the knowledge behind ‘What is growth like?’ ”
Then Commissioner Ron Cutsinger talked of his interest in a question that would target respondents’ views about the prospect of the commissioners’ shifting funding in upcoming budget years to accelerate road projects.
Cutsinger acknowledged that his proposal also regards growth and development.
“And traffic,” Scacco said.
“We’re at a point where we’ve really got to make some tough decisions,” Cutsinger added, noting that the board does not want to raise the property tax rate, though he indicated that that could be necessary to speed up road construction.
Scacco did point out that, in past surveys, when respondents have identified traffic as a major concern, a follow-up question has asked them whether they would suggest specific areas that need to be addressed. “We do have multiple years of data on that,” which is available to the commissioners, he told Cutsinger.
The surveys also have included a question asking respondents whether they feel the board’s budget priorities are appropriate, Scacco noted. Whenever a survey taker says the priorities need to be changed, he said, a follow-up question asks what the priorities should be.
Generally, Scacco pointed out, the majority of respondents have said the board’s budget priorities “are just right.”
Nonetheless, Cutsinger responded, “In the past year, I’ve sensed a pretty significant shift [to] a lot of dissatisfaction on that issue.” Perhaps a more pointed question would be helpful, he suggested.
“We can take a look at that,” Scacco replied.
Cutsinger also brought up the jail referendum question that was on the survey the past two years, saying, “I think the more information we can get,” the better direction the commissioners will have from their constituents. He would like such a question to be on the 2025 survey, Cutsinger told Scacco, but possibly framed in a different way.
Then Commissioner Tom Knight raised a concern about the need to keep the time for taking the survey to about 15 minutes.
Scacco responded that the team has been “pushing it,” with the questions it has been asking. “It’s already a challenge getting people on the phone,” Scacco added.
Perhaps some questions could be removed, Knight told him, to make way for the ones already brought up that day.
“We could do fewer of the specialized topics,” Scacco said.
Commissioner Cutsinger stressed, “I want to keep [the survey] to 15 minutes or less,” noting that the board members should not be telling Scacco and his team how to word questions, as they have the expertise to do that.
Roads, stormwater and land acquisition
“The most important thing in our community is our roadways and our traffic,” Knight pointed out, indicating that he would like for the survey to include a question regarding respondents’ views on how the county should pay for accelerating road projects.
As she sees it, Mast told Scacco, one of the most important questions on the survey should involve respondents’ views of the county’s stormwater maintenance. “It’s so vital to get an understanding of where people’s expectations are.”
Among the other most important topics, Mast continued, are traffic infrastructure and the 2026 referendum that will ask voters whether they wish to keep paying an annual assessment to provide the revenue that the county uses in buying environmentally sensitive lands and new neighborhood parkland.
The commissioners last year requested that the survey reprise a question included in 2023 in regard to county efforts in purchase land for preservation and for the creation of new county parks. The surveys noted that the citizen-approved land acquisition program had been in effect since 1999, but it will expire in 2029.
The 2024 answers showed that 58% of the respondents were aware of those facts; that was up from 44% in 2023, Scacco told the commissioners when he presented the findings of the 2024 survey to them on Oct. 23, 2024.
On April 22, Mast also concurred with Cutsinger about the jail referendum question.
Further, Mast said she wants the survey to ask respondents about their interactions with county staff, especially in regard to whether they felt they had been treated with respect.
Scacco reminded her that such a question has been on the survey for the past decade. “The county usually scores very, very high,” he added.
“It’s important to keep it on there,” she replied.
Chair Joe Neunder suggested that the 2025 survey again include a question regarding the respondents’ views of the reopened Midnight Pass on south Siesta Key.
The 2024 survey asked about respondents’ awareness of the natural inlet between Siesta and Casey keys, as well as whether they were aware that the inlet was closed by private property owners in the early 1980s and that the county commissioners had been talking about how it could be re-established.
(Hurricane Helene in late September 2024 reopened Midnight Pass, though the waterway closed a couple of days later. Then Hurricane Milton created a new inlet between the Gulf of Mexico and Little Sarasota Bay that has proven more stable thus far in that storm’s aftermath.)