Since only 38% of the surveys were returned shouldn't that be considered as part of the over all "approval" rating?

"The overall rating of City Hall's performance is 48% positive"

Even keeping it weird 48% is absurd.

One should automatically assume the worst and that this is tainted. It's Portland. That's what the city does. Taint. The city could so easily skew the results and not be held accountable that they would do it for sure. Why not? The city may know behind the scenes that respondents are more likely supporters or having conflicts of interest. If all they did was send a disproportionate number to city employees or any number of other manipulating stunts they could pump up falsified support.

If they truly wanted to know public sentiment they would hire a professional pollster to perform an honest polling.

I was one of the lucky 10,150 to receive this one sided survey and tossed it in the blue recycling can after reading how the questions were formulated.
1. Is the Downtown core better now than in 2-8-1851 when the city was founded?

2. Do we need more bike boulevards to handle all the bike riders expected to arrive in Portland over the next 52 years?

It would also be interesting how many returned Surveys ended up in the blue recycling bin if the answers weren't what the city wanted to hear.

OK, so CoP picks out the stuff they like and throws away the rest and pretty much acts like they always have.

Nothin' to see here, folks.

"Ratings of the City's job in making downtown a good place for recreation, shopping, working and living dropped from 69 percent in 2008 to 58 percent in 2011." That's a pretty precipitous decline. For all the money they've thrown into downtown development, you'd think that number would be up or at least holding steady. But no. And for this, money is taken away from basic services for neighborhoods? What a waste.

Re-doing the transit mall was an enormous waste of money. It clearly made the place less attractive, except to lowlifes.

More money thrown away for the sake of shaping propaganda.

Not to be all fan boy like, but since downtown already monitors this blog and probably many like it, why not just save the money and actually act on some of the common gripes posted here?

They are all pretty consistent in my view. And I think the readers of this blog are better at representing the "stakeholders" of the area.

As an aside, it'd be interesting to me to see the demographic of the denizens of this blog. I'd be willing to bet that it was a better cross section of the city than the one that gets the chance to participate in the surveys.

The survey is a joke. Claiming that it has an accuracy of +-1.6 percent is a joke. Consider who would fill out this kind of a survey (I received one). They are usually those who have a strong interest in the city and think they can affect the city. It was long, the questions were leading, and didn't provide the obvious "wouldn't change a thing" kind of answers.

It almost like the 6 to 10 people who show up a a neighborhood association meeting, take a vote-just barely a majority, then they, the planners, and the media claims that the 4200 people in the "neighborhood" supports the 10 bioswales along a 15 block of a street. Sure.

Yes, let us have a conversation about neighborhood associations. I think they used to be a strong force when the city came into their neighborhoods against the neighbors wishes on issues. I don't see that today. Partly because I think the city has neutered them by showing the residents that they won't listen to the associations.

I believe that the city USES the associations to send out notifications I suppose they can then claim that they have notified the area by sending the notice to the association, however, the association does not have enough funds to notify every household as you mentioned for example the 4200 people in the neighborhood.

People need to realize that the people who do serve on these associations are volunteers. I Don't think it is realistic to expect the volunteers to flyer 4200 households for all the myriad of issues that come up. Should that burden of notification fall on the volunteer's shoulders whenever the city sends out a notice?

I did have a suggestion years ago when the O came out to the community to ask what they could do for better solutions for the community. I suggested a column/page for a list of hearings, meetings for neighborhood areas.

As much money as the city wastes on other matters, they could have a page on for example critical land use notices under the headings of the neighborhood areas.

Since then we have emails and websites, etc. But in any event a better broad way of real notification is needed instead of relying on a few to get the notice out.
However as jaded as I have become, I think city, planners, etc. like it just the way it is.

The same thing with these surveys. Streetcar meetings for example and then the room is peppered with proponents and at the end of the night the "answer wanted" is most likely achieved. Those who call out the procedure or are against it are often viewed with disdain in such an arena.