A Snap-Shot of the Kenmore City Council Retreat
Some Excellent Priorities Identified
Last Wednesday I posted the first “official poll” on Kenmore Undressed in anticipation of the Kenmore City Council Retreat that convened this last weekend. I asked what the most important priorities are for the City of Kenmore in 2010. So far I’m pleased with the number of votes and the poll is still active for those of you who would like to add your two cents! Here’s what it looks like so far:
Click this picture to answer the poll!
Today I received a quick summary of the City Council’s retreat from Councilman Bob Hensel. It’s interesting to compare those priorities identified by the council and some of the issues I raised in the poll. Here’s Bob’s summary:
The top 5 are as follows,
1. The completion of the 522 project which will assist in attracting new businesses.
2. Working to reopen the CAWM pool at St Edwards as the council realizes the longer the pool stays closed the the more difficult it will be to reopen.
3. Economic development which includes implementing the plan put forward by the Citizens Advisory Committee and approved by the council last summer. Note that plan includes attracting new businesses, downtown,lakepoint, and more.
4. Completing a parks plan which provides for more active park space and and financing options.
5. Review of current police services and the contract with King County. The annexation of Finn Hill (unincorporated King County) to the city of Kirkland and other changes to services provided by King County in 2012 need to be addressed now.
This is only a brief synopsis of each priority, a lot of discussion went into getting to this point and there is a lot more meat on the bones of each priority.
I’d like to thank the City Council for some good brainstorming at their retreat. As a resident of Kenmore and a Real Estate Agent, I’m encouraged by the Council’s focus on business development while at the same time working to preserve Kenmore’s landmarks and natural resources. 2010 is going to be a challenging year. I sincerely hope some of you out there get involved in making Kenmore a 21st Century City.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
James: So far you have input from 12 people. Such a small sample size can not possibly be considered a representative sample of the community. At what point do you think you will have accurately assessed the priorities of Kenmore?
Wikipedia has some useful insight into the use of numbers:
“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is a phrase describing the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Hi Dennis – Thanks for the comment. Actually, if you click on the survey there have been 20 respondents. I’ll change the picture so as to encourage people to click on the survey in order to see the number of voters.
Also, you raise a couple of good points:
1) I intend to grow my blog audience in order to get a larger sample of respondents. This is the quitesenntial issue with surveys: how to get enough people to answer them.
2) This is by no means a “wide reaching” poll. If I were inclined to publish the results of this kind of survey, I certainly would not try to make an argument based on 12, 20 or even 200 people.
3) I have included this survey to get a sense of what my readers (who are mainly in Kenmore) think. One of my neighbors asked me recently, does the City Council care what we think? This raised the question: How would the City know what’s important if they don’t ask?
4) The old saw about statistics is instructive, but again I would point out that in the last several years the City Council (and presumabley other city leaders) have made some unilateral decisions about Kenmore. We here in Kenmore haven’t even had an opportunity to “disparage statistics” because the Council has provided us none (my whole beef with the new City Hall being a good example).
Ultimately, my goal is always to probe for answers to the right questions or to try and stimulate some conversation about important issues. I would welcome you or others to suggest polls or surveys for this blog.