[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: FW: DRAFT energy future survey

[kohls at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Ageton, Suzy

From: Ageton, Suzy
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:56 AM
To: Huntley, Sarah; Cowles, Macon; Osborne, Susan; Gray, Crystal; Wilson, Ken; Becker, KC; Appelbaum, Matt; Karakehian, George; Morzel, Lisa; Morzel, Lisa
Subject: RE: DRAFT energy future survey

One more comment on the energy survey - I do not believe it can be consistently done in 15 minutes .  I think it needs to be reduced and here are some additional cuts I would make to pare it down:


1)      Eliminate question #2, this is the kind of question we will be asking in the Community Survey so why is it needed here.

2)      Q3 - questions where the respondent has to generate the categories always take more time.  As with #2, this is the type of question asked in the general Community Survey so do we really need it here (as nice as it would be to know)

3)      Q14 - I would focus strictly on cost, reliability and green energy.

4)       Q28 - nice to know but not essential
From: Huntley, Sarah
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2011 4:15 PM
To: Cowles, Macon; Osborne, Susan; Gray, Crystal; Wilson, Ken; Becker, KC; Appelbaum, Matt; Karakehian, George; Ageton, Suzy; Morzel, Lisa; Morzel, Lisa
Subject: DRAFT energy future survey

Dear council members,
The city will be conducting a telephone poll in early July to determine how voters are feeling on several topics related to our ongoing discussions about Boulder's Energy Future.  We anticipate that the poll will begin late next week. The findings and conclusions will be presented to you on July 19. Several council members have asked to see the questions that have been drafted for the telephone poll; therefore, I am attaching what staff considers to be the second to last version for your review.

We have had several in-depth conversations with our consultants at National Research Center (NRC) about how best to capture the type of data that is most essential to informing the decisions you will be making over the next several weeks. As you know, there are lots of reasons to conduct phone polls, and the questions you ask, as well as how you ask them, depends on what you are trying to measure. The recent Xcel poll is a perfect example. It was not written to determine whether municipalization would pass or fail; instead, the questions appear to have been formulated to determine what messages might help Xcel in any campaign against municipalization.   This is not the intent of our survey.  Rather, we must make sure that the results of the survey will provide you with meaningful information about how the middle-of-the-road voters are feeling about this issue.   As a result, we focused on crafting questions that are based on accurate information and are in context. We are also striving, per our consultants' advice, to keep the poll to 15 minutes or less. This means we cannot add any questions without taking a corresponding number away.

With these factors in mind, we most certainly welcome any suggestions you might have. As with everything on this project, we have a very tight turnaround. NRC needs to have this survey finalized by noon this Thursday so they can program it into their system and run some test calls. As a result, I would appreciate your feedback no later than 3 p.m. tomorrow. Thanks very much.

Sarah


Sarah Huntley
Media Relations/Communications Coordinator
City of Boulder
303-441-3155
huntleys at bouldercolorado.gov