In early spring this year, the City of Shakopee performed a resident survey through the National Community Survey (NCS) conducted by the National Research Center (NRC). The sample was collected between April 5 and May 26 and consisted of 390 residents. 2,700 surveys were mailed to random residents. 390 – or 15% – of those who were mailed a survey responded.

The results of the survey certainly highlight the strengths of the city and provide a good basis for understanding why people enjoy living here. We can also track some real successes in several areas that were concerning in the past.

In addition to reporting the % positive for each area, the NCS compares our results with over 600 other communities and notes on each question whether Shakopee was “higher” “lower” or “similar” to the benchmark.

Attached is the report of results for the survey which outlines residents perceptions of the “livability” of Shakopee and covers the following areas:

·         Economy

·         Mobility

·         Community Design

·         Utilities

·         Safety

·         Natural Environment

·         Parks and Recreation

·         Health and Wellness

·         Education, the Arts and Culture

·         Inclusivity and Engagement

Several overarching themes were present in this year’s survey:

Residents value their quality of life and feel safe in Shakopee – Communication efforts on the safety of Shakopee show results. In the survey, 8 of 10 residents positively rated quality of life and Shakopee as a place to live (up from 80% to 88%). However, “overall opportunities for education and the arts” continues to slide from 66% in 2016 to 59% in 2019 to 52% in 2021.

Almost 80% rated positively the overall feeling of safety and over 90% positively rated safety in their neighborhood and Downtown. At least 8 of 10 rated fire, police, ambulance, EMS, crime prevention, animal control, emergency preparedness, and fire prevention as excellent or good. All were increases from our 2019 survey. “Overall feeling of safety” increased markedly from 64% to 78%.

Governance is an area for growth, but innovation in the city is critical – We continue to struggle with perceptions of transparency and honesty in governance. We continue to believe there is an effect of past unflattering  news from organizations who share the name "Shakopee" in their titles, which the public connects to city government. Although still disappointing, all the metrics continued to increase.

In addition, treating people fairly and with respect, customer service, public information services and the overall quality of our services rated highly. There was large support for innovative ideas that save tax dollars and improve customer service. Value of services for taxes has increased from 47% in 2016 to 56% in 2021.

Shakopee’s Economic Health is a top priority – Residents send strong signal to continue economic efforts. As noted, survey states that future goals should continue to be focused on economic health with 92% rating as at least “very important”. 70% gave “good to excellent” ratings for Shakopee’s economic health. Shakopee as a place to visit (71%), work (74%), and the overall quality of our business and service establishments (77%) also showed increases for the survey. The vibrancy of the downtown area continues to improve as well rising from 32% in 2016 to 46% in 2021.

Residents pleased with mobility and transportation – Efforts and instrument in transportation infrastructure shown as residents rate higher than national benchmarks. Receiving very high marks (and all improving over 2019) included travel by car (92%), street cleaning (82%), traffic flow (78%), ease of public parking (77%), sidewalk maintenance (75%) and ease of bicycle travel (72%). Residents went even one step further by overwhelmingly (almost 70%) supporting new property taxes to support our above average road conditions.

Conclusion – We are making good and steady progress. It’s important to understand that resident perception is a form of reality. However, often we can use objective data to demonstrate that Shakopee should actually rank higher based on facts rather than resident perception. The best example for this has been the perception of public safety in past years. After some effort to factually address that perception, we have seen some real positive changes in the 2021 survey on the topic of safety. (This was a concerted effort by Administration, Police and Communications over the last several years, and was based upon the recommendation after our 2019 survey).

A good majority of Shakopee residents have a positive perception of the City of Shakopee. Across the three pillars of community characteristics, governance and participation, results show a majority of residents think the characteristics of Shakopee are positive, the city government operates efficiently, effectively and is a good value, and residents are engaged in the community. All of these factors lead to our high quality of life rating.