Falls Church residents are overwhelmingly happy with just about everything in their home town, including their local newspaper, a comprehensive survey conducted by a professional outfit shows. The results of 20 minute conversations with about 400 city residents were presented to the F.C. City Council at its work session this Monday.
Adam Probolsky, president of the opinion research company that bears his name, appeared before the F.C. Council at its work session Monday to present his 40-page comprehensive summary of the survey conducted last month, and he repeatedly interspersed his presentation with comments to the effect that the results are uncommonly positive.
Most stunning was the outcome that a whopping 94 percent of those polled “rate the quality of life in Falls Church as excellent or good,” up from 88.5 percent the last time a similar survey was done in 2023. Those who consider the quality of life in F.C. “poor” are only 1.3 percent.
The results show that 89 percent consider the City’s overall services to be satisfactory or very satisfactory, with 86 percent rating customer service from employees as excellent or good, and 79 percent rating the “tax dollar value” here at satisfactory or very satisfactory.
These are amazing numbers, as Probolsky affirmed Monday night, saying the City’s results are “really strong, you don’t normally see numbers this high.” They are even more so when contrasted to the results of other regional jurisdictions. While all other area governments come in with high marks, none are close to Falls Church’s.
Another major takeaway of the survey touched on how the residents of Falls Church find out what’s going on, and clearly the top source for that is once again the Falls Church News-Press in its print edition, with a rating of 52.3 percent, compared to word of mouth (49.3%) or the City’s official website (40.3), its Focus newsletter (27.3%) or social media accounts (22.8%).
Social media groups organized by local residents came in at 22.0 percent, the News-Press online at 18.0%, ARLnow at 14.3%, local TV stations 13.5%, Council members 12.8%, direct participation in public meetings 10.5%, local radio news 9.5%, appointed board and commission members 8.8%, City meetings aired online 7.5%, and Falls Church community TV 3.5%. “Something else” totalled 10.0% and either nothing or unsure 2.1%.
The results mirrored an extensive survey conducted over 20 years ago by then City Manager, the late Dan McKeever. The News-Press topped that survey, as well, and this week’s report demonstrates a consistency over time that has covered the paper’s weekly operations since March 1991. “The City’s high marks for its service to its citizens, and importantly in terms of its delivering ‘bang for taxpayer bucks,’ owes in good part to the quality and consistency of our reporting week in and week out over the last 34 years,” the News-Press’ Nicholas Benton remarked this week. “To us, it means people are reading and taking heed of our coverage.”
As for the key findings overall in the survey report, in addition to overall quality of life and services provided, Probolsky noted that the City also scored high on the government performance in building a strong community” (62%), on “delivering services to its residents in a fair and equitable way” (65%), and on its efforts “to solicit public input and engage residents in policy and programs” (58%).
As for challenges facing the community, Probolsky noted that “when asked to identify the three most serious challenges facing the City, residents identified the amount of taxes (53.5%), traffic congestion (53.3%) and street conditions (53%).
Probolsky Research is based in D.C. with offices in Newport Beach and San Francisco, California. In this report, it was explained that the 400 interviewees were founding using consumer data and were called, emailed and texted, with demographic factors matching those overall for the City.
Interviews were conducted with live U.S.-based interviewers by phone (36%), online (64%). Phone participants were interviewed through landline (20%) and mobile (80%) calls. Online participants were invited by email (42%) and text message (58%) to access the survey by computer, tablet or smart phone. Respondents in all modes chose their preferred language, English (97%), Spanish (2%) or Vietnamese (1%).
The poll comes with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.
The results concluded that “the walkability and small town feel of the City are what residents like most about living in Falls Church (walkability or walking distance to all (21%), Small town and small town feel (21%), Community feel, nice community (16%), Convenient location (10%), Proximity to school, work or D.C. (5.3%), Schools (4.3%), Low crime (4%), Scenery and climate (3.5%), Kind friendly people (3.5%), Quiet and peaceful (2.3%), Everything (1.3%), Accessibility (1%), Other (5.5%), nothing (0.8%) or now response (0.5%).
Other responses by categories scored best for “maintaining sidewalks, cross walks and neighborhood traffic calming as the most important service for residents.” Also, “maintaining public libraries is the top service that residents are satisfied with.” By 63% to 24.8% residents are “satisfied with how the City promotes economic development.”
The “biggest gaps in importance and satisfaction are maintenance of streets and roads, maintaining sidewalks and crosswalks and managing growth.”
Although there was no category where dissatisfaction came in higher than satisfaction, the closest to that came on the issue of affordable housing.
Also, the survey did not extend to issues related to the City’s public schools, being outside its requested purview, Probolsky said.
