County's recent survey sees residents urging development

The results of Lac La Biche County’ s 2015 Citizen Satisfaction Survey are in, prompting a local councillor to once again stress how little control the county has over development choices.
One of the most frequent comments heard by the third-party survey managers was that more economic development and businesses are needed in the county.
When the survey’ s findings were explained to county councillors last Tuesday, councillor Hajar Haymour said the municipality can’ t simply make new developments appear.
“The county has nothing to do with that,” he said, adding that the county and council aren’ t opposed to seeing new businesses in the community but developers make their own decisions. “We never stopped Tim Horton’ s, we never stopped Canadian Tire, we never stopped Walmart.”
Mayor Omer Moghrabi, however, said it’ s not surprising that people would mention that in a satisfaction survey, even if the county’ s involvement is minimal.
“When times are tough, everybody looks towards the municipal, provincial and federal governments,” he said.

The whole point of the survey was to get a sense of how well the county is meeting the needs of its residents-and identify areas for improvement, said chief administrative officer Shadia Amblie.
The survey took place in mid-November last year, with a company named Trend Research contacting 400 randomly selected households in the county. After that, another company named Marcomm Works compiled the results into a report for publication.
According to the report, nine out of 10 survey-takers spoke well of the county’ s quality of life, rating it as either good or very good. Since the last such survey was taken in 2012, satisfaction levels have risen in most areas but there’ s still room for improvement.
“The lowest-ranked areas were transparent decision-making and balancing development,” said Godfrey Huybregts, the Marcomm Works senior consultant who explained the survey report to council last week.

Residents who took part in the survey were also asked to rank the importance of county services and programs. The fire department tops the list, just above roads and transportation services, while laws and bylaw enforcement is at the bottom, below weed control and agricultural services.
That doesn’ t mean resident see those as unimportant, though. The report shows 53 per cent of respondents view laws and bylaw enforcement as important, versus 19 per cent who don’ t and 23 per cent who don’ t feel strongly one way or the other.
The report also includes a comparison between satisfaction and importance levels for each municipal department or type of service. Huybregts said the county appears to be nurturing a stronger correlation between the two.
“The gaps between satisfaction and importance ratings-they’ re closer than they were in 2012,” he said.

The full report has been released to the public. To view it in full, follow this link.
The POST was once again listed as the top source for county information in the survey.