Small Town News

Survey: Rehoboth residents satisfied with government

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Save Our City finds preservation, environment top priorities

Rehoboth Beach residents are satisfied with how the city is run

and cited environmental concerns, such as protecting the city's beaches, trees and lakes, as the city's most important issue. The results are from an online

survey conducted by citizen action group and political action committee Save Our City. The group distributed the survey to 660 citizens and receiv&i 150 re-

sponses, a return rate of 23 percent.

According to the survey, 66.7 percent of the respondents rated the city's government - identified as the city commissioners, the Rehoboth Beach Police Department and the city staff - as excellent or adequate.

Save Our City spokesman Howard Menaker said, "This is an approval rating most national, state and local officials would envy."

Environmental issues were

very high on the respondents' list of priorities. In the city's protection of its natural features - trees, beaches and lakes - those surveyed gave the city high marks, and almost 9 of 10 respondents said the cleanliness of the beach and Boardwalk was excellent or good.

More than 70 percent of respondents rated the tree ordinance and efforts to preserve Lake Gerar as excellent or ad equate, although they were less impressed in their assessment of the city's efforts to clean up Silver Lake.

Citizens surveyed rated Re-hoboth as a safe place to live. More than 70 percent said they felt safe on the beach, Boardwalk, downtown and in their neighborhoods. Their biggest concern was home burglaries; Rehoboth had a rash of burglaries during the winter.

Save Our City was founded as a citizen reaction to the pace of development that was happening in the mid-2000s. Those surveyed said the pace of development in the last five years was about right; they supported city efforts to discourage large Mc-Mansions and maintain the small-town character of Rehoboth.

Parking has been a hot-button issue in Rehoboth over the years, but respondents said they found parking to be a problem only during the summer season. Most said they did not support building a parking garage.

"It was pretty positive all the way through," Menaker said. "Things that we had suspected might be issues because they had been talked about - the parking garage, noise and those sorts of things - people didn't say 'Oh,

these are big problems in the city,' which I think is a very positive response."

One of the last questions on the survey asked what projects or initiatives respondents would like to see the city undertake in the next 12 months.

"We got a wide range of answers to that," Menaker said.

Among the responses were new bike paths and improved sidewalks, continued efforts to improve the health of the lakes, stronger efforts to protect trees and a smoking ban on the Boardwalk and beach.

"I think that's largely because it's been in the papers," Menaker said of the smoking ban issue. "There were no surprises. There are no issues that we just didn't suspect."

This is the first time Save Our City has done a State of the City survey, and Menaker said he hopes a survey will be an annual thing.

"We always said that Save Our City got out information and encouraged people to get active on

issues of importance. But we realized that since the beginning of Save Our City, what we had was

antecdotal input from people. We had never really done a survey of the people who were involved in Save Our City or anybody else asking, 'What's on your mind?'" Menaker said.

The 27-question survey was done in multiple choice format and Menaker said the response to die survey was very high.

"Most surveys you get 5 to 10 percent," he said.

In summarizing the survey, Menaker said, "People love this city, with good reason, and want to be sure it stays as green, safe and beautiful as it is now. A vast majority of residents and visitors state that their most important values are enjoying the smalltown character of the city, maintaining the beach and Boardwalk, and keeping the city safe and secure. They feel the actions of the city over the past few years have reflected these values."

To see the survey results, visit-saveourcityrehoboth.com.





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