FENWICK ISLAND – Fenwick Island’s mayor says the results of a resident survey will be reviewed in the coming months.
Last Friday, Mayor Vicki Carmean announced the preliminary results of a resident survey, distributed to Fenwick Island homeowners earlier this fall.
“If you recall, early on we sent out a survey and we asked volunteers from the community – basically one person per household – to respond,” she told attendees at last week’s council meeting. “We got a pretty good response.”
In September, the town council agreed to pay roughly $700 in postage fees to mail out a resident survey to each household in Fenwick, with a goal of identifying the community’s thoughts and opinions regarding various town aspects.
Carmean noted the town had since received survey responses from 237 participants. She added that 172 lived on the bayside, while 65 lived on the oceanside.
“I’m not sure what the percentage is,” she said. “We did send out about 700 surveys, so we got about a third back, roughly, and I’d like to spend more time going over that with you at the January meeting.”
Carmean explained survey questions were scored on a scale of one to four, with one being the most satisfied and four being the least satisfied. She noted, however, that the town had received scores between one and two.
“Everything in the town was scored from a 1.6 to a 2, so nobody was terribly upset with the town …,” she said. “Looking at the number of people that participated from bayside, I can tell you almost everyone complained about bayside flooding. So we know that scored low.”
Councilman Bill Rymer said the survey would not only be used to gauge the community’s concerns, but to address those concerns.
“We aren’t just going to report back the results of the survey, but also action plans …,” he said.
Carmean responded that the survey would help identify issues in Fenwick. From there, she said, any issues could be referred to a town committee for review.
“I wanted to know where we stood, and I think this is a starting point,” she said. “What I’d like to do is maybe spend a little bit of time with each segment … If we look at each of those segments, we can tell where the low scores came in and that may be an area that can be referred to a committee.”
