For those of you who completed some or all of the long survey on San Francisco parks back in December (or anyone else who may be interested), the results of that survey are out:
http://sfnpc.org/park-survey2010/
The published report, which can be downloaded, includes the raw data on question responses from the "over 1400 individuals who responded", but tellingly, *does not* include what I think would likely be the most interesting part of the results -- the additional comments that respondents volunteered. I'm going to write and ask them to send me those comments -- given the generally statist assumptions behind the questions and response choices offered, I found that the boxes where I could write in my own comments were by far the most meaningful opportunity I had to give feedback when taking the survey.
One nice take-home fact -- a plurality of respondents, without being offered any choices, named staff salaries and overtime pay as the areas of the parks budget they would most like to see cut:
"Respondents were asked to list three types of expenses they would cut. They were not given any set
options and produced 910 different responses. Several themes emerged. Nearly half of the 410
respondents (48.5%) wrote about high salaries and overtime pay. The next two favored answers were
new parks and construction projects (35.4%) and funding regional attractions (18.3%). Other frequent
suggestions included the reduction of miscellaneous costs and any wasteful spending (17.1%), golf
expenses (16.6%) and the reduction of hours in underused facilities (14.6%)."
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))