While it may be many months before their work hits the streets, several elected bodies are gearing up to create an in-depth survey of Wilton residents on a wide range of issues.
The quad-board public survey will involve input, questions and potentially some forms of subsequent action from Wilton’s Board of Education, Board of Finance, Board of Selectmen and Planning and Zoning Commission.
“We have buy-in from all the boards,” BOF Chair Matt Raimondi told his fellow financiers on Tuesday, July 8, at a meeting which included BOS members as well.
The BOF as a body decided to engage the other three major elected bodies to allow a full picture to be painted.
“There are a lot of questions that the Board of Finance wrestles with that are hard to answer in our annual survey,” Raimondi said. “This is a proposal that comes up every year. It’s just a question of actually doing it, of having a … larger survey analogous to the 2018 survey that we did.”
The BOF oversaw a large-scale survey that was presented on Dec. 18, 2018, and was organized in conjunction with the BOE, BOS, and the Economic Development Commission.
The online anonymous survey was conducted by RTI Research. David Rothstein, its CEO and a resident of Wilton, volunteered the company’s services for free, and also served on the committee that organized the survey.
There were 1,411 respondents, which represented 12% of the town’s 11,847 population of individuals 25 or older at that time. (As only four people under 25 responded to the survey, they were omitted from the results.)
Questions included people’s reasons for coming to Wilton, satisfaction with — and perception about — both the town and school district, thoughts on town spending, revenue generation, shared services with other towns, and voting philosophies.
In presenting the survey in 2018, Rothstein said it afforded all residents a chance to have a voice and was, potentially, not as intimidating as having to speak in public before a Town Meeting.
“There’s a lot of different steps that need to happen here,” Raimondi said of conducting a new survey.
He suggested that, as happened last time, a committee be formed to include either one or two members from each elected body.
“This committee would be squarely focused on: What does the survey look like? What are the questions we want to ask? What are the topics that we want to address? and What are the best ways to address those topics?” he said.
“I think it’s a lot for 20 people across all the boards to take on simultaneously,” he said, suggesting that while it would be in the committee’s hands how long the preliminary process would take, he expected it could be up to a full year.
“You’ve got to get organized,” Raimondi said. “You’ve got to draft the survey. You’ve got to find somebody, and launching a survey during an election and during budget season (is) probably tough.”
“I don’t think there’s any imminent rush right now, but I think it would be great to get this process started,” he said. “That way it doesn’t slip through the cracks.”
Given concerns that having two representatives from each elected board might be too many, First Selectman Toni Boucher proposed including two members from the Board of Finance, as the lead body, while the other boards would each appoint one person to bring the total number of committee members to five.
Raimondi said he would relay that suggestion to BOE Chair Ruth DeLuca and P&Z Chair Rick Tomasetti to get their thoughts.
The initiative won’t take the place of the annual budget survey that the BOF has conducted for the last several years, Raimondi confirmed.
“This is more beyond that,” he said, calling the quad-board survey more complex and wide-ranging, and potentially including issues about development and target tax rates.
BOF Vice Chair Stuart Koenigsberg spoke in favor of the multi-board survey, noting that the BOF annual survey was an entirely different undertaking.
“I do think it’s a very good idea for the heads of all the boards to get together to discuss what their priorities are in terms of getting the survey,” Koenigsberg said, noting there were “pain points” in town that were worth exploring and discussing, including views on development.
“Having said that, I think the Board of Finance survey is different, in that we’re trying to simply gather additional data points and input so that we can follow the lead of the public,” Koenigsberg said, recommending the two surveys be conducted separately.
Boucher said the survey would prove valuable given the events that occurred since the last multi-board survey was done.
“In the last three to four years since COVID, the town has changed dramatically,” Boucher said.
“It would be important to see if there’s a different point of view or positions … I would like to know that, how people have changed in their attitudes,” she said.
Raimondi said he would plan to revisit the issue at the BOF’s August meeting.