LIMA — The city of Lima’s Community Development department is promoting a new neighborhood services survey that will not only help the department determine its priorities for its Community Development Block Grant application for next year, but also help spur residents to get more involved in their neighborhoods.
This survey, available at the city’s website, http://cityhall.lima.oh.us, is meant to identify needs in various neighborhoods, asking residents what community services are available where they live, as well as what they feel are the best and worst qualities of their neighborhood.
“We want to find out what people think about their neighborhoods or things they’d like to see changed or ways they can help improve where they live,” neighborhood specialist Connie Dershem said. “We ask if people participate in neighborhood associations and why or why not and questions like that. I hope they’re normal questions that people will understand and be able to answer.”
This survey comes a year after the Lima Matters survey, used to help the city formulate its five-year consolidated CDBG plan.
“The response to that was much better doing the online surveys,” Dershem said. “We’ll probably keep doing them on different topics.”
While the survey does help the department learn on what areas it needs to concentrate when it comes to block grant allocations, Dershem hopes that it will help encourage residents who want to get involved with their neighborhoods but are unsure how.
“It’s an opportunity for people to learn how to get engaged in the community,” she said. “We offer in the survey the chance to receive the Neighborhood Notes monthly newsletter and our quarterly community newsletter, so hopefully people will take advantage of it.”
Along with the online option, residents can fill out and return paper copies of the survey, available at the Lima Municipal Building, the LACNIP Resource Center and all three community-oriented policing stations.
“We want people to be honest,” she said. “We want to know what they’d like to see happen.”
