South San Francisco, CA January 25, 2018 Press Release 
South San Francisco’s Community Survey Shows 84 Percent of Residents are Satisfied With the Quality of Life in South San Francisco
Survey collected via telephone calls and an online questionnaire
Quality of life and resident satisfaction are the top priorities of city government in South San Francisco. To ensure city operations and strategic direction are in line with resident expectations and desires, the City of South San Francisco recently commissioned Godbe Research to conduct a telephone and online survey of South San Francisco residents. The survey’s primary objectives were to measure the satisfaction with quality of life, residents’ opinions on the future direction of South San Francisco, and what residents are most concerned about.
“It’s important to make sure that as change continues in our City and across the entire Bay Area, we keep a finger on the pulse of our community,” says South San Francisco City Manager Mike Futrell. “Our City is facing many of the same issues our neighboring cities are facing, which include affordable housing and traffic congestion, and we want to assure our residents that we are looking at creative ways to address those concerns.” Futrell adds that the results of this satisfaction survey will help guide the City Council in setting its priorities moving forward.
A total of 471 randomly selected residents (Adults 18+) were surveyed, 379 of whom were registered voters, and had the option to participate in English, Spanish, and Cantonese. The margin of error was +/- 4.50 percent, which means that the results were calculated to be accurate to within 4.5 percentages points 95 percent of the time.
Insights from the survey include:
- 54.9 percent of residents think that things are going in the right direction, while only 21.8 percent say things are going in the wrong direction – a 2.5 to 1 positive to negative ratio.
- The most important top of mind issues are:
- Affordable housing (25.7 percent)
- Traffic congestion (19.8 percent)
- Nearly 70 percent of residents agreed there is a housing crisis on the Peninsula.
- 42 percent of residents believe that the number of new residential units being built is about right or not enough, while 40.7 percent believe too much housing is being built.
- 53.2 percent of residents believe the City should encourage the construction of more affordable housing.
- 61.7 percent or residents believe the City should encourage housing construction near where people work.
- An overwhelming majority of residents are satisfied with the job the City is doing to provide municipal services, with 84 percent indicating they were satisfied with the courtesy, customer service, and the results from City staff.
- Among the 26 percent of the respondents that have contacted the City within the last 12 months, they indicated very high levels of satisfaction with the contact.
- 85.9 percent were satisfied with the “courtesy of City staff.”
- 84.2 percent were satisfied with the “customer service you received.”
“The overwhelming support of our residents as demonstrated through this survey is gratifying,” said Futrell, “confirming our observation that our residents greatly appreciate the work done by our police, firefighters, park and recreation workers, library staff, public works employees, and all of the 900 full and part-time employees of the City who work hard every day to make South San Francisco a great place to live, work, learn and play. Thank you to our residents for their support.”
The full presentation given to the City Council is on the City’s website at http://bit.ly/SSFResidentSurvey.
[…] one of the topics on the Special Meeting agenda concerned a study by Godbe Research commissioned by the Council regarding resident satisfaction. 471 residents were interviewed and the most important issues to […]
I was called. They didn’t ask us about traffic, the over building of our small town, and the lifers on the council. Everyone knows polling asks questions to what they know the answers before asking.
We weren’t asked that we think about all the windfall of money, the parks are a disgrace for a small town. WE didn’t vote for a ‘civic center’ with an expensive fire house(that is not needed). Measure W passed because they changed the rules and the wording in the ballot statement.
We were a nice small town but now we’re handled by a City manager who is a politician, advising our politically naïve city council.