The city of Santa Clarita is now conducting its public-opinion poll, the biennial survey that asks residents how the city is doing in meeting their needs and what it could be doing better.
“The city of Santa Clarita is committed to providing high-quality services and responsive local governance to our residents,” according to the city website set up for its public-opinion poll. “Since 2012, the city has conducted a biennial Public Opinion Poll to gain a deeper understanding of our residents’ priorities, concerns and satisfactions.”
For residents who might be thinking, “Hey, I want to make my voice heard and let the city know what I think” — there’s always the opportunity to deliver three minutes of public comment during biweekly City Council meetings.
The Public Opinion Poll, however, may not be your best medium: It’s an invite-only survey of residents who are randomly selected to participate, according to the city’s website. Santa Clarita Communications Manager Carrie Lujan did not immediately make a copy of the survey available upon request Monday.
Essentially, the surveyor takes a sample of all registered voters in the city. The sample is then “stratified” and “sets of clusters are defined for combinations of age, gender, partisanship, household party type and area of the city. Based on this profile, individuals were then randomly selected into an appropriate cluster,” according to consultant True North Research’s explanation. That’s intended to ensure if a person of a particular profile refuses to participate in the study, they are replaced by an individual who shares their same profile.
True North, the Encinitas-based consultant that conducts the outreach on behalf of the city, says it’s looking for a demographic that reflects “all registered voters” in Santa Clarita for its approximately 18-minute survey, which is offered via online link and phone interview to those chosen to participate.
“The motivation for the current study was to design and employ a methodology that would avoid the self-selection bias noted above and thereby provide the city with a statistically reliable understanding of its residents’ satisfaction, priorities and concerns as they relate to services and facilities provided by the city,” according to its most recent survey report.
For its last biennial survey, True North Research gathered 831 completed surveys to create its sample from 148,916 registered voters, according to the city’s report. The margin of error given by the statisticians was 3.4%.
The standard formula for a sampling size indicates one would need a minimum of approximately 384 responses with a confidence of about 95% in the results.
Over those randomly selected for sampling in 2024, 74% reported living in the city 10 years or more, and 67% were over 40 years old. Almost 70% were homeowners, and a little under two-thirds, 61%, indicated they do not have children at home, with another 4% declining to answer that question.
The last survey was the second time True North collected fewer than 1,000 responses, with the 2020 and 2022 surveys garnering over 1,200 responses.
The city also uses the data collected by True North to indicate what direction the wind is blowing, so to speak, in terms of public opinion on issues like public safety and city services. True North also mentions “statistically significant” fluctuations in the data, when the answers show a two-year change, and True North is “95% confident that the differences reflect an actual change in public opinion,” based on the data collected.
“From 2022 to 2024, there were statistically significant increases in satisfaction with the city’s efforts to protect the environment (+7%), support homeless services (+7%), provide diversity and inclusion programs (+4%) and provide special events (+3%),” according to the survey.
The top-two issues for those unhappy were listed as “Slow, inadequate response to resident needs, requests” at 14.9% and “Public safety, need more emergency personnel, police service” at 11.2%.
The city publishes all of the previous results from its surveys here: santaclarita.gov/public-opinion-polls.
