Richmond City Hall (Photo by Jay Paul)
The last time City Hall formally sought citizen feedback, Richmond was mired in a pandemic.
In February 2022, then-City Auditor Lou Lassiter presented the results from the citizen survey — a national benchmarking exercise known as the Service Efforts and Accomplishment report — to then-Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders. The news wasn’t good: Out of 149 survey questions, using comparable localities handpicked by the city, Richmond scored higher than its peers in only four categories — supporting the arts, reaching out to City Hall for help, watching public meetings and using public transit.
In the remaining 145 categories, Richmond either performed on par with other U.S. cities or worse, sometimes much worse. On public safety, for example, Richmond scored at least 20 points lower than its peers, and only 39% of residents surveyed rated the quality of city services as “excellent or good,” 10 points lower than its benchmark locales.
There hasn’t been another survey since.
“They were prompted by a national requirement,” City Councilmember Stephanie Lynch says of the once semiregular surveys. “The citizen survey is really to get a better handle and understanding of how well our city services, and specifically the department of emergency communications and emergency planning, [are] functioning.”
The surveys, which originally focused on public safety, later expanded to include other city departments, Lynch explains, “to get a sense of how well we were doing on all things customer service- and service delivery-related across the entire City Hall portfolio. So that could include the Department of Public Works to trash pickup, traffic safety and infrastructure, to your police department, etc.”
Four years later, Mayor Danny Avula says the surveys are making a comeback.
“We totally do plan to do that,” Avula said in a recent interview. “I met with the auditor about three months ago about it. He’s also new. This is his first year on the job. So, there was some catch-up for him, some catch-up for me. I think the citizen survey is an absolutely useful tool for us to have our finger on the pulse of what citizens want from their local government.”
While there is no official timeline, Avula says the goal is to roll out a new citizen survey this year.
