Airdrie City Council is actively pursuing its strategic priority to expand and diversify citizen engagement and City administration is ensuring everyone has an opportunity to provide feedback and have their voices heard. To this end, staff have has created a user-friendly, online, engagement satisfaction survey.
“Citizen engagement is crucial in helping Council & City Administration understand the needs and wants of our community,” says Mayor Peter Brown. “In order for us to plan citizen engagement that works for you, we need to hear from you in this survey.”
“At our public engagements in the past, we often hear from a small group of highly engaged citizens. We love that these citizens participate, but feel it is important to hear from a broader audience that represents a wide variety of diverse populations in Airdrie,” says Jill Iverson Team Leader, Corporate Communications, City of Airdrie. “Additionally, Council wants to ensure citizens know how and why decisions are made and that they participate in the process.”
Council and staff at the City of Airdrie have made great strides on this strategic priority element by developing new internal procedures, looking into a variety of online engagement platforms, and assessing the results of past engagement tools.
“A way to improve on future engagement is to survey our residents, non-profit groups, and businesses to understand more about their needs, desires and their past experiences,” continues Iverson. “This survey will help to inform us on ways we can improve in the future. We want to hear from a wide, diverse group of people including all ages our long term residents and those who just moved here, home based business owners to those with 500+ employees and everyone else too.”
It is very important for Airdrie residents to participate in the survey, and it is the hope of Council that this user-friendly platform helps drive high engagement. Residents that, in the past, have not participated in engagement surveys or tools are strongly encouraged to take part too and note on the survey the ways they prefer to be contacted and engaged. As Iverson notes, “It’s just as important to understand why people don’t participate as understanding the ones who do.”
Council strives to make hearing and acting on residents’ input easy and convenient. Other ways to connect with Council or have your say on an issue include:
- Answering the call during the annual telephone (January) Citizen Satisfaction Survey.
- Attending a council meeting; they are on the first and third Monday of each month and held in Council Chambers at City Hall.
When Monday is a statutory holiday, the meeting is shifted to Tuesday. Meeting agendas and minutes are posted online. - Participate in the Community Needs Assessment poll, which is run every three years.
- Check the Community Engagement page on the City’s website for upcoming engagement opportunities
Council wants you to know that your voice matters, your concerns are valid, and that the Mayor and Council members look forward to positive interactions and constructive feedback with any resident that gets in touch.
Take the engagement satisfaction survey today. Your participation matters and makes a big difference in the future of Airdrie and area.
