REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Presentation On Voter Research Activities Related to Potential Revenue Measures for the November 2020 Ballot
Report
BACKGROUND
In November 2019, the City Council authorized the City Manager to negotiate a consultant agreement for the purposes of conducting voter research related to revenue measures for consideration on the November 2020 ballot. In February 2020, the City retained the services of the Lew Edwards Group and their subconsultants EMC Research and Public Dialogue Consortium to conduct voter research activities using a variety of methodologies including a telephone survey, in-person community meetings and online surveys. A survey tool for the telephone survey was developed in early March with planned implementation for late March to be followed by a series of 14 community meetings and two pop-up events in the months of April and May. However, on March 11, 2020, the City declared a local state of emergency in alignment with the County of Santa Clara's Shelter-in-Place Order related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the uncertainty of allowable activities and without a viable means of soliciting community engagement, the voter research project was put on hold.
The City's successful transition to virtual communications allowed for a pivot of voter research strategies that included the development of "behind the scenes" tours to inform residents of the City's infrastructure needs via the Facebook Live platform as well as the utilization of video conferencing tools to conduct a series of virtual webinars directly with City residents. According to Facebook analytics, the video tours had a reach of 9,100 individuals ("reach" is defined as the number of unique people who saw the content). With a viable plan to ensure community engagement, the City authorized the consultants to proceed with voter survey activities which took place from May 27, 2020 through June 6, 2020. The purpose of June 23rd study session will be to share...
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