The City Council should abandon this so-called “survey” on desirable traits of city manager candidates.
It’s great that they recognize concerns about selecting the next city manager, but this survey is not the way to go about it.
Anyone trained in survey research can see that the questions and categories are amateurish. Is there a reason why 12 to 17-year-olds, over 75-year-olds and every 10-year age group in between should be counted but not feedback by income level? How about disability or ethnicity?
The survey can’t possibly represent the community since it isn’t based on a well-researched sample of Laguna Beach stakeholders who would be polled via phone, house-to-house or professional focus group. Instead, it’s simply broadcast online. And who provided the very large database of contact information? I certainly did not authorize using my personal contact information in this way, yet I received a solicitation to complete the survey on my phone. And note: I was able to take the survey twice because the survey was so poorly constructed.
No information from such an entirely invalid survey should be treated as “results” as they are not representative of anything other than the disparate opinions of a few rather than a representative sample of Laguna Beach community views at a moment when trust in government is very eroded.
I suggested in an email to the council the following:
As an alternative, you might want to provide confidential, anonymous surveys to both the rank and file of police, fire and city employees for their input, as they will be most immediately impacted.
They could also set up one or more community listening sessions, done as true focus groups, where residents and business people can provide constructive input.
Either way, given the recent past, I urge you to make a key attribute for the new city manager that the individual has particular skill in restoring confidence in management, leadership and communication both within a municipal organization and to the elected leadership and community that they serve.
Kiku Terasaki, Laguna Beach
