Dear Fayette County citizens, we are currently seeking your input in a Parks and Recreation Needs Assessment Survey. It is our desire to know how we can serve the citizens of Fayette County better, now and in the future.
Recently an article was printed in the paper with some misinformation regarding the Needs Assessment Survey. We will attempt to clarify the misinformation, so that you the citizen can in fact make an informed decision regarding the survey.
The water bill insert is only one way that the survey has been announced. In an effort to notify all Fayette County citizens regarding the Recreation Needs Assessment Survey, (prior to sending out the initial survey), several promotional strategies were implemented.
These strategies included water bill inserts, flyers sent home with all students in the Fayette County School System, information posted on the local cable station and on the county’s website, flyers posted in the parks, submission to local papers, and email blasts to those on the current Fayette County Parks and Recreation database.
A request was also submitted to the municipalities, county and municipality youth associations, Fayette County Senior Services, Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, and Fayette County Government Departments asking their help in advertising the survey either on their website, in email blasts or in newsletters.
All marketing efforts were utilized in an effort to reach the citizens of the county in the most economical way possible.
The survey is taken online. It is set up on software that restricts responses using means other than a home address.
There are numerous reasons why asking for a home address will not guarantee that people will not complete more than one survey, only one of which is that they could use another address, whether real or fake on any additional survey.
Typically, the challenge in conducting a survey is getting people to actually complete the survey rather than people taking the survey more than once.
The survey asks many questions regarding recreation programs and facilities as well as demographic information. This information will help us determine which programs, facilities, ages, or areas of the county that may still need to be addressed.
The last section of the survey asked opinions about other funding options. The survey respondents are instructed to “assume that all other options have been exhausted, such as fees, in-kind donations, grants, and volunteer time/talent and that a way to fund the services and programs you desire is under consideration.”
The survey respondents are instructed that they are “only giving their opinion at this point.” The survey respondents are told the “focus in this section is to understand preferences regarding various funding possibilities.”
The intent of the funding options is to determine the desires of the Fayette County citizens and is for information purposes only.
Given the concerns about this, we are adding this sentence to the survey section where these questions reside: “There are currently NO plans to implement any of the options below. We are collecting information ONLY at this point so as to ensure that we specifically know your desires and opinions on this.”
The intent of the survey as a whole is to determine what programs, services, activities, and facilities the citizens of Fayette County desire going forward.
We ask all Fayette County citizens to take the time to go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/79S7SFH to take the survey. You are important to us, and we want your voice to be heard.
For more information regarding the survey, please feel free to contact us at Reccomm@fayettecountyga.gov.
Fayette County Recreation Commission members:
Charles McCollum
Joe Kuebler
Shane Jones
Darryl Hicks
Thomas Stephens
Fayetteville, Ga.
