Coronado Honored with Voice of the People Award

Coronado, CA (October 16, 2012) – Mayor Casey Tanaka accepted an award at a City Council meeting Tuesday that honored Coronado for having some of the highest-rated local government services in the country according to residents who took a national citizen survey last summer.

The City received a Voice of the People Award for Excellence following a review of the results of the National Citizen Survey, which enables local governments at a reasonable cost to gather information from residents and use it to measure a community’s services and its quality of life.

Coronado was among 12 communities nationwide that received a Voice of the People Award for Excellence at the International City/County Management Association’s 98th Annual Conference in Phoenix. A plaque was presented to City Manager Blair King at the conference last week.

“On behalf of the City Council I’m excited to accept this award,” Tanaka said Tuesday. “I also want to thank the City Manager. He came to us in 2011 and said this is a good opportunity to see how our residents are feeling about what we do as a city and the services we provide.  Thank you Blair King for initiating that and bringing us back this valuable feedback.”

The 12 communities receiving the Award for Excellence had a service quality rating in the Top 3 among all eligible jurisdictions in 2011. To qualify for this award these communities also had to be in the top 10 percent among more than 500 jurisdictions in the National Research Center database of citizen surveys.

No other city had as many Top 3 ratings as Coronado, which had a service quality rating in the Top 3 for each of the following categories:

• ·         fire services;
• ·         ambulance or emergency medical services;
• ·         recycling;
• ·         public library services;
• ·         city parks;
• ·         recreation programs and classes; and
• ·         overall quality of City services.

“We are proud to have received the Voice of the People Award for Excellence,” said City Manager Blair King. “The City’s favorable results from the National Citizen Survey are an extraordinary achievement but we want to continue to improve our services and sustain those areas where we are already performing well.”

Cities send out the National Citizen Survey to residents whose perspectives on local government services and quality of community life are evaluated. Questionnaires were mailed to 1,200 random Coronado households and 357 completed surveys were received. The survey found that 98 percent of residents responding to a questionnaire last year rated the overall quality of life in Coronado as “excellent” or “good.”

When compared to hundreds of other cities across the country, Coronado ranked No. 1 in ambulance/emergency services, animal control and youth activities; No. 2 in sewer services; No. 3 in fire services and services for seniors; and No. 4 in street cleaning.  Parks and recreation services also received high marks. Respondents ranked recreation programs and centers No. 1 while the City’s parks ranked No. 2.

Residents revealed a strong trust in local government with a majority of respondents rating the overall direction being taken by the City of Coronado as “good” or “excellent.”  On average, citizens gave the highest evaluations to their own local government and the lowest rating to the state government.

The City ranked below other cities in affordable quality childcare, traffic and public parking. However, Coronado officials were pleased with the overall response.

The International City/County Management Association is a local government leadership and management organization and the National Research Center is a leading survey research firm for local government.

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