I'd like to call the order of the government the City Council study session of August 6, 2024.

Clerk, you please call the roll.

Councilmember Bushnell.

Councilmember Daniels.

Absent.

Councilmember Diaz.

Deputy Mayor Hines.

Councilmember Rumba.

Absent.

Councilmember Stalgay.

Councilmember Scott.

Councilmember Walker.

Mayor.

Mayor Woodards.

Absent.

Deputy Mayor and Councilmembers, the study session material was sent to you at 1103.

Thank you, and apologize for the late start today to study session, but we are going to begin with our first agenda item, which is the 2024 Community Survey Results Update.

Thank you, and good afternoon, Deputy Mayor, members of council.

I'm Jacques Cologne, Chief Strategy Officer, and very excited to bring you our update on the 2024 Tacoma Community Survey today.

And so really when you think about it, listening itself is a key strategy for us in how we do our work.

We listen to the community in a number of different ways, recognizing the importance of hearing many diverse voices in the places that they want to connect with us and not assuming that we will get the engagement that we need in a set location or at a set time.

So because we need to make sure that we're getting those voices in many different ways, we conduct workshops, we do surveys, we table at events, we do a lot of other things as well.

One of the things that we do is every two years, we give a statistically significant survey that then allows us to ask key questions, for example, like what is your perception of safety in Tacoma, and then break that down by a number of different demographics, which you'll hear more about as we go through the presentation.

We take the results of what we hear from community and we use those results to inform all that we do, including strategic initiatives such as our strategic plan Tacoma 2025 and our next strategic plan Tacoma 2035, which you'll hear more about in the coming months.

The community safety action strategy, which you'll hear more about next week, and our comprehensive plan, just to name a few.

But ultimately, what I want to make sure that we are starting with as a framing for this is that in order to accomplish our strategy as a city, we first have to understand what the vision of the community is.

Once we can reflect that vision clearly, and then show folks that we are not just understanding but acting upon that vision in effective ways, that is how we build belief and trust in the community.

Um you see the results of this survey, you know this is a point-in-time snapshot.

So while there are things that we can glean from looking back, it is it is a reflection of a moment in time, and there's a lot of different factors that contribute to those feelings.

So as with all of the data sources that we look at, it's important to look at the story that's being told by this data, but also important to recognize that there are many other pieces of data that help fill out what the what the real story is on the ground.

Um I also wanted to mention that with surveys like this, you'll often see benchmarks or comparisons with other communities, and that can be useful, but it's also important to take those with a grain of salt.

And the reason why as a parent, I think about this in terms of I tell my son in particular, comparison is not the route that we want to go, right?

Like our goal is to be the best version of ourselves, and I think the same thing is true of cities that is as it is of people.

Our goal is not to compare ourselves necessarily to similarly sized cities, but it is to be the best version of Tacoma possible.

So as we think about the benchmarks, recognize that we have unique things happening in our community.

Not every community that is the same size as us is dealing with economic issues that we're dealing with, or um regional homelessness issues, for example, that we know have a big impact on people's perceptions.

So with that, um, I'm gonna pass it to Ted, who has been our project lead on this, and let Ted take it away.

So next slide, please.

So thank you, Jacques.

Uh, for the record, my name is Ted Richardson.

I work in the Office of Strategy, and we are joined today by Ryan Murray of the ETC Institute, who we hired to conduct the survey.

Uh so like Jacques said, the city conducts a statistically significant survey every two years.

So we've done it consistently consistently since 2018, and then also did it in 2010 and 2014.

The prior one was completed in February of 2022.

Uh, for this one, we contracted with ETC Institute.

The surveyed uh instrument was finalized in late spring of this year, and then the survey was conducted in June and July.

So you're seeing very fresh results.

Um is a tool that should be paired with our other recent engagement efforts.

It is the one that is statistically significant across geography and key demographic groups.

Um, but it should be it should be informing those further outreach efforts.

So some recent examples include the one Tacoma community outreach events that were hosted across the city, the June 5th partner convening that we that our office hosted with partner agencies and community organizations to begin forming the Tacoma 2035 strategic plan, the balancing act workshops that our budget office is opening, hosting to help community members uh understand the budgeting process, and then multiple uh months of internal staff engagement, specifically around the Tacoma 2035 strategic plan and the community safety action strategy.

Um if you go to the next slide, I'll pass it to Ryan to go over the results of this year's survey.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, members of the council for having us uh this afternoon.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Um, we're excited to present the results.

And first, I just want to take you through what I'll be uh going over this afternoon.

Uh first I'll explain the purpose as it comes from the consultant.

So I know that each community that we work with has a specific purpose why we do these uh surveys, and I want to make sure that I kind of frame you up uh for the way that we review them, for the way that we analyze the results.

I'll go through the methodology, which is a really important factor of ensuring the statistical significance or relevance of the results.

I'll go through key findings in four major stages, and then I'll summarize uh at the very end before passing it back on along to staff here.