Survey lists tops: street crime, utility bills

Public safety and help with water and sewer bills should be priorities when Lorain spends federal economic stimulus money to deal with effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Lorainites listed their top issues for American Rescue Plan Act money in a citizen survey conducted from July to September this year.

Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley has referred to the figures in the last few weeks and he published the results Sept. 21.

There were 1,544 responses, with 407, or 26 percent, coming online and 1,137, or 74 percent, in a printed version issued with city water bills, according to the figures from government consulting firm Zencity.

The executive summary stated:

• Concerns about public safety, public works related issues and the local economy emerged as the most popular priority areas identified by residents.

• Overall, residents expressed more support for funding areas that require the city to implement new policies and invest in community-facing departments than policies that provide direct financial help to private individuals.

• Residents also expressed support for further investment into the city’s parks and recreational facilities.

• Some also pointed to traffic enforcement, vacant buildings and expensive water bills as areas of concern.

In the survey, residents were asked to rank 10 proposed uses for spending the federal money.

“More than three quarters of all respondents assigned medium- or highpriority levels to the topthree proposed uses of the American Rescue Plan Act, indicating that most residents are keen to see the city invest its resources in addressing street crime, water and wastewater and small business support,” the Zencity report said.

Analyzing the results, Zencity reported proposed investments into areas dealing with public works and repairs, such as water and wastewater, housing repair and sidewalk repair, ranked relatively higher than direct financial transfers such as housing assistance, down payment assistance and educational scholarship.

Another finding: “Although recreational facilities ranked eighth in terms of the highest priority ranking, when combined with the share of medium-priority votes, it ranked fifth, suggesting that residents are still relatively invested in funding the city’s recreational spaces.”

Half of all respondents assigned low priority or no priority to a proposed down payment assistance plan and an educational scholarship, said the results.

CITY OF LORAIN/ZENCITY Lorain Mayor Jack Bradley published on Sept. 21the results of a Zencity survey that asked Lorain residents how the city should spend money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. ARPA is part of the economic stimulus money to counter the effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.