More Listening, Less Spending: Rethinking Sammamish’s Community Survey
In a tight budget year, I don't believe we should spend $30,000 on a survey that council cannot meaningfully tailor and that does not help us make real tradeoffs.
Context
At our February 17, 2026 City Council meeting, we discussed whether to proceed with the City’s planned “statistically valid” community survey through Polco. The contract is expected to cost $30,000.
This comes at a moment when every expense needs to be defensible. We have a structural budget deficit. The prior Council adopted a 6% utility tax in March 2025, and it took effect January 1, 2026. This helped with the deficit temporarily but it didn’t solve the structural problem. Every expense matters.
I support hearing from residents. I do not support spending $30,000 on this survey as presented.
What’s wrong with the survey
The agenda bill explains that Polco uses standardized “National Community Survey” questions, and Sammamish is “unable to modify any of the questions.” The City’s only flexibility is “approximately three-to-five custom questions at the end.”
The process works by mailing paper surveys to 3,000 households. In the 2024 survey the city received 322 completed responses. If we saw the same participation this year, that is roughly $93 per completed response.
While this is a “statistically valid” survey that is weighted to match the demographics of our city, the survey has 5% margin of error. With that kind of margin, year-to-year “movement” is often small and hard to interpret. And even if satisfaction scores moved noticeably, Sammamish would likely still compare well to benchmark cities.
This does not provide the council with actionable guidance for hard choices. Importantly, it doesn’t give you a voice.
You can view the prior survey here.
My view and how I’ll approach the decision
My focus is fiscal discipline and usable feedback.
I will not support the citywide survey as presented, even if we write the best possible supplemental questions. The cost is too high for what we get, and the output does not help Council make the tradeoffs residents actually care about.
More importantly, this is a survey done every two years. I want Sammamish to build a habit of continuous feedback, tied to decisions in front of us, not a biennial snapshot that cannot be tailored to our real policy choices.
What happens next
Council delayed a final decision for about a month so we can consider better options.
During that window, I am preparing a proposal to replace the Polco survey with an approach that gathers more frequent, more decision-focused input:
Online surveys promoted through the City newsletter which is currently sent six times per year. King County Councilmember Sarah Perry’s survey is a good example, which is currently running here. You can view the 2025 results here.
Short surveys that force real choices: “How important is this?” “What would you pay?” “What would you cut?” “Would you use debt or fees for projects like roads?”
Optional, targeted reach: limited social media ads to broaden participation
Paper copies available at places like City Hall, the library, the YMCA, and interested local businesses.
Email Distribution: Deliver the survey via email to the addresses we have an file, and continue to grow that email list.
This won’t create a perfect academic sample, but it is dramatically cheaper and will get clear resident input that helps Council choose priorities on the budget, transportation investments, parks decisions, and much more.
And, importantly, it gives residents an opportunity to provide regular and meaningful feedback on the tough choices we’re facing as a community.