http://www.leaderpost.com/EXCLUSIVE+POLL...+support+city+council/2535729/story.html
EXCLUSIVE POLL: Survey of Regina residents shows strong support for city council
By Joe Couture, Leader-Post February 8, 2010
A new survey of Regina residents indicates high grades for the performance of Regina City Council and strong support for the recent move to increase the terms for elected municipal officials to four years, up from the current three.
Sigma Analytics conducted telephone interviews with 535 Regina residents, 18 years old or older, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3. The sample size yields a margin of error of plus or minus 4.23 per cent, 19 times out of 20. Results for sub-sets of the sample have larger margins of error.
The survey found 56.2 per cent of respondents gave Regina City Council a positive performance rating on a five-point scale, on which '1' was "performing very poorly" and '5' was performing very well.
Among those who gave a positive rating, 12.4 per cent chose '5', while 43.8 per cent chose '4', which indicates room for improvement, according to the Sigma Analytics' analysis of the figures.
A neutral rating of '3' was given by 30.7 per cent of respondents, while 8.8 per cent chose '2' and 4.3 per cent selected '1'. The mean response level was 3.51, and positives outweighed negatives by a ratio of 4:1, Sigma Analytics added.
"It's indicating pretty strong levels of support for the current council," said Cam Cooper of Sigma Analytics. "The survey was done more or less at the time of the big snowstorm. My expectation was the measure of performance may be a little more modest just because people would be irritated at getting hung up driving out of their streets. It may have had a big effect and we might have had a larger number without it. Even with it, it was fairly strong."
Mayor Pat Fiacco said he thinks the public feels confident that council is working on the issues that are important, noting the well-publicized master plans for the future that the city is developing.
"I'm pleased with those results, but there's also room for improvement," he said. "It's always nice to know citizens are paying attention, and also are feeling positive about the work council's doing. We know we're not going to make everybody happy, as much as we try to. We're going to continue to work hard."
Meanwhile, one a similar one-to-five scale, respondents were asked to indicate whether they strongly opposed (1) or strongly supported (5) the idea of having councillors elected to four-year terms, instead of the current three-year.
On that, 50.3 per cent provided a positive response (32.0 per cent '5' and 18.3 per cent '4') while 23 per cent provided a negative response (15.2 per cent '1' and 7.8 per cent '2'). In the middle were 26.7 per cent, who gave a response of '3'.
The mean response level was 3.44. The numbers indicate some polarization on the issue, with responses grouped at the bottom and top of the scale, and at the neutral midpoint, Sigma Analytics noted.
Support for the move to four-year terms increased as age went up, with those 18-29 offering a negative general response, while all other age groups gave a positive one, more so with each decade of age. Those over 70 years old gave the most positive general response.
"I'm not sure why that would be," said Cooper on the age factor. "One of the maybe common arguments against the four-year term is that there's some advantage to keeping elected people on a short leash. Maybe younger people feel that they need to be kept on a short leash, whereas, as you get older, you realize that maybe the savings from doing an election every four years as opposed to every three years is worth having, given that for the most part incumbents don't turn over until they quit, or tend not to."
Minister of Municipal Affairs Jeremy Harrison said the results of the poll reflect what he had heard before he announced last week the shift to four-year terms would go into effect with the next elections.
"We knew that support wasn't unanimous, but we knew there was a pretty strong majority that wanted to see the move to four-year terms," Harrison said.
On the age factor, he noted there could be many reasons behind the phenomenon, but offered one explanation.
"It does seem that voters that are older ... seem to be somewhat more engaged. I think that you would find that in the course of elections, both provincial, federal and municipal. For that reason, I think you might have perhaps a greater acceptance of the four-year cycle and how that would lead to those benefits of more effective governance and also reduced costs and also the fact that this is a fairly standard thing in terms of provincial election cycles and seven other provinces do it this way as well."
Fiacco said he, too, "got the sense that the pubic would understand that four-year terms make more sense than three-year terms," noting that, in addition to financial savings, he thinks that councils will be able to get more done during four-year terms and that more voters and candidates might participate in the electoral process.
Fiacco also commented on survey results indicating support among Regina residents for renewing or replacing Mosaic Stadium, noting he thinks stadium feasibility study results, expected within a month, will answer a lot of questions in the minds of the public.
He noted those against a facility are basing that opinion on what they think they can afford, but said financial indicators for the province are positive, despite the provincial budget, which he said doesn't reflect what's going on with other parts of the economy.
"It's nice to see there's still strong support for it," he said.
"There's no question, on the economic side, building new makes more sense in regard to getting a better return on your investment. If you renew, you're just going to have more of what you have. If you build new, you're going to be building something totally different that has far more uses than our current facility."
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