As part of the renewal of the Official Community Plan for the City of Kimberley residents were asked to participate in an online survey. 467 people took part and the results indicate that people are generally satisfied with life in Kimberley.
64.5 percent of respondents rated quality of life in Kimberley as ‘very good’ and 60.6 percent rate it as a very good place to raise a family.
As a place to retire, 39.1 percent say Kimberley is good, 39.6 percent very good.
In general, how would you rate Kimberley as a place to have a business? 20.1 percent said it was poor, 37.3 were neutral and 28.1 said it was good.
Use of city facilities was a mixed bag. For instance 29.2 percent report using the Kimberley Nordic Centre more than once a week, 18 percent use the Civic Centre that much, 39.4 percent make that much use of the Rails to Trails, while only 8.6 percent use the ballfields that often. 49.7 percent responded that they are in the Platzl at least once a week.
Generally, the majority of respondents find city infrastructure such as the Library, Museum, the Nature Park, Cominco Gardens and more good to very good.
39.5 percent think the Mark Creek Flume Rehab is good, 29.6 find it very good.
50.7 percent believe the City’s overall performance is good, 15.7 say very good and 22.7 percent are neutral.
The hot button issue of road maintenance and snow removal gets passing grades, with 17.4 percent saying it was poor, 16.7 percent neutral, 33.9 percent good and 23.4 percent very good.
Respondents were given an opportunity to pick five city services there should be more of and five there should be less of.
The top five people wanted more spent on were water and sewer infrastructure repairs, road maintenance, business and investment attraction, business retention, and recycling.
People were not as keen on the idea of reducing garbage collection to bi-weekly.
40.8 percent of respondents said users should pay more towards maintenance of city facilities and 68.6 say city services should be maintained at current levels. 47.5 percent agreed that taxes should be increased only if required to maintain present services. 38.6 percent are satisfied with the value received for property taxes, 27 percent are neutral and 20.1 percent are unsatisfied.
The City website and FaceBook page rate high for providing citizens with information. As for local media, 30.5 percent get their city information from the Daily Bulletin, 12.4 percent from E-Know, 9.2 percent from Go Kimberley, and 5.5 percent from the radio.
The 2016 Survey was launched January 19 and closed February 15 with a total of 467 responses. Respondents were not required to answer each question. An additional 58 people viewed or opened the survey but chose not to respond to any questions.