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In order to understand the public’s goals, concerns and priorities regarding the future of Albemarle, the city council has been working with the Centralina Regional Council (CRC), formerly known as Centralina Council of Governments, to create a community survey for citizens to complete.

“If we’re going to get a clear picture of what the public would like for us to do for the future of the city, we have to get a good cross section of the public and make sure we hit a good variety of the citizenry to get their input,” said City Manager Michael Ferris during a recent meeting of the city council.

Speaking virtually before the council, Geraldine Gardner, executive director at CRC, said community surveys are commonly used tools in planning processes “to take the pulse of different stakeholders on a constrained set of issues.”

The CRC will partner with survey company Qualtrics, which will help to craft the survey questions so they are accurate, properly worded and don’t run the risk of misleading the public.

Gardner said the city leadership staff will work with CRC to provide initial goals and topics for survey questions. The CRC will then work with Qualtrics to design questions, which will then be finalized by city staff before the survey is released to the public.

Gardner said she hopes the survey, which will be online but with a paper option, will be available to the public sometime in November. The goal is for the survey results to be collated and synthesized before being brought before the city and council in January or February.

The survey will be used to inform the development of the city’s upcoming fiscal budget, help understand opportunities for long range planning, identify potential capital needs and provide feedback on the public image of the city, Gardner said.

“The results of the survey will help to inform not only current decision making, but future decision making as well,” she said.

The CRC, which is a public organization that works on planning, economic development and workforce development for nine counties in the greater Charlotte area, has recently helped the governments of Marvin and Belmont to conduct surveys for their citizens.

The council had previously utilized the CRC to help facilitate several strategic planning sessions last year about priorities for the city going forward. Some of the feedback that came from the meetings was the need for more direct feedback from the community.