The Community Alliance of Saint Joseph is conducting its fifth effort to survey St. Joseph and Buchanan County residents about issues relating to community livability.

According to a press release, surveys will be mailed next week to 1,800 randomly selected residents of St. Joseph and Buchanan County. These survey results will be compared to the survey results from previous years to see how the community has progressed.

The residents are randomly selected for statistical validity of +/- 3.7 percent, meaning that if the survey was given 100 times, the results would be the same, +/- 3.7 percent.

The survey is distributed through, and analyzed by, ETC Institute, an Olathe, Kan., company that has performed similar surveys in 500 cities throughout the United States.

“We will compare the 2018 results against the previous surveys in St. Joseph and also again be able to benchmark ourselves against other communities served by ETC,” said Steve Johnston, Director of the Community Alliance of Saint Joseph.

While St. Joseph and other cities both survey residents on opinions about city services, St. Joseph goes beyond those questions and asks about education, volunteerism, poverty, economic development and arts/culture.

All individual survey results are completely confidential and only the total scores are reported. Results are expected in late June.

The Community Alliance will discuss the findings in presentations to the public.