QUINCY, ILL. -- UPDATED: June 10 at 9:43 a.m.
The Quincy Park District Board is touring these local parks Friday to see how each one fares.
KHQA's Jim Whitfield will join them and see what their reaction is to the recent surveys, so check this story later and watch KHQA's News at Five, KHQA's Evening News at 6 p.m. and KHQA's Late News at 10 p.m.
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(WTAD) The Quincy Park District's Board of Commissioners heard the findings from the community survey conducted a few months ago during its monthly meeting Wednesday night.
The survey was put together by Leisure Vision, which mailed out surveys to 2,000 random households within the District. The goal was to get about 400 surveys back; 433 were completed.
The results were compared to both the state and national averages. Quincy fared well in numerous categories.
Park usage is high. Of those responding, 95 percent indicated visiting a park once within the last year. That exceeds both the national and Illinois benchmarks which are 72 and 77 percent, respectively. South Park was visited most by the responders, followed by Moorman and Clat Adams. Boehl Memorial had the lowest percent.
The community said South Park leads the park pack when it comes to improvements needed, followed by Quinsippi Island.
According to the results, there are four actions at least 25 percent of those responding said they are most willing to fund with tax dollars. Those are: 30 percent said upgrade existing neighborhood parks, 30 percent said extend Cedar Creek Trail to the Mississippi River, 28 percent said extend Cedar Creek Trail to 36th Street and 28 percent said develop a new Wavering Aquatic Center.
The survey also showed that 73 percent of the people would favor "some level of tax increase" for improvements to the above.
Excellent ratings for the conditions of the parks are low. While park visit numbers are high, only 21 percent of those who visited a park in the last year said the condition was excellent.
The Wavering Aquatic Center received the lowest ratings as far as being in excellent condition. Only 17 percent of those surveyed found it to be so. 41 percent of the responders rated Indian Mounds Pool as being in excellent condition.
Ron Vine, president of Leisure Vision, gave a presentation to District staff and the Commissioners. In his report, he said "While the Quincy Park District is currently doing an excellent job, the survey clearly showed opportunities for actions to improve Park District services to residents."
Executive Director Dan Gibble said a lot of the results stood out to him, and that it was vital information to have moving forward.
"These are pieces of information that we need to use to help us begin the prioritization process," he said. "In some cases, the information helps us affirm things. I think some things also stood out to us that we weren't expecting."
He talked about the desire for neighborhood parks. Gibble said "we should think very heavily about the importance of neighborhood parks ... clearly they are important to citizens as a whole in all of the regions."
He said he believes there are opportunities to address multiple needs by taking one action.
"There are some things we can do to maximize our efforts and have a positive end result with the use of wise resources," he said.
The Board will take a look at the facilities during a park tour on Friday. Board members also have a retreat next month, where they will likely talk more about how to utilize the information in the report.
A quick look at some findings:
41 percent of respondents were very satisfied and 36 were somewhat satisfied with the value they receive from the District. These numbers are both "significantly higher" than both national and state benchmarks.
61 percent of respondents are in support of extending the Cedar Creek Trail from 12th Street to 36th Street.
46 percent of respondents said they would favor building a new Wavering Aquatic Center with more leisure features. 24 percent indicated they would favor leaving the Center open and doing renovations.
69 percent of respondents indicated they had a need for picnic areas and shelters.
87 percent of households feel either very safe or safe in the parks they frequent. The reasons people didn't feel safe included not enough people at the park and inadequate lighting.
Walking, hiking and biking trails are the recreation facilities frequented most often, followed by the picnic areas/shelterhouses. Mini-golf/batting cages/paddleboat complex was at the top of the list for special revenue facilities visited.
QuincyNews.org is in the process of receiving the entire report in PDF format and will post as soon possible.
*Reported by: Jamie Busen with WTAD
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