A CITY DIVIDED Independent News | January 5, 2017 | Volume 18 | Number 1 | inweekly.net
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Early last month, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward announced the results of the third annual City of Pensacola Community Survey that was conducted by the University of West Florida Haas Center. Nearly 70 percent of respondents said that the City of Pensacola was headed in the right direction. Most of the city services were given high ratings by the respondents. "Seeing that by a margin of 8 to 1, city residents are telling us that the city is on the right track, and that the city continues to get high marks for core services such as public safety, sanitation and city parks, I think these survey results validate that our priorities are aligned with the community's expectations," said Mayor Hayward in a press release. However, the survey greatly overrepresented the residents living around Bayou Texar (District 4), Cordova Park (District 3) and
Scenic Highway (District 1). Those three districts contain 41.1 percent of the city residents and 45.6 percent of Pensacola’s registered voters. More than 89 percent of their voters are white. The city’s population is 30.4 percent minority. The disparity between the number of respondents living in the two sides of Penacola is stark. The districts that are the city’s easternmost comprised 252 of the survey’s 444 respondents, 56.8 percent. The city’s western districts, Districts 5, 6 and 7, only had 123 respondents, 27.8 percent, though they have a larger percentage of city residents, 43.3 percent. District 7, which contains the Tanyards that has been battling City Hall over the Government Street Stormwater Project, only had 30 respondents. District 1 has the smallest percentage of residents (12.9%), but it had 82 respondents.
Government Street Stormwater Project / Courtesy Photo
Demographics of Inweekly Survey District
Residential Distribution
Haas Sample
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
12.9% 15.6% 13.0% 15.2% 14.0% 15.8% 13.5%
82 - 19.7% 42 - 10.1% 89 - 21.3% 81 - 19.4% 45 - 10.8% 48 - 11.5% 30 - 7.2%
Long Hollow Radio Tower / Photo by Richard Humphreys
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District
Respondents
White
Black
Other/ No Response
5 6 7 Total
80 81 66 227
25 41 25 91 40.1% 48.0%
44 26 24 94 41.4% 45.7%
11 14 17 42 18.50% 6.31%
Voter Registration
UWF Haas Center’s Amy Newburn, who oversaw the survey, defended the survey on WUWF radio. “Not all respondents are going to pick up the phone,” she said. “But, it’s really important for us to note that every person that had a phone number and within the city limits had an equal chance of being picked.” Through a public record request, Inweekly obtained a copy of the city’s contract with the Haas Center. The Haas Center committed to do four rounds of phone calls to collect 400 responses. There was no requirement that the respondents be proportionate to the city districts and the demographics of the city residents: “To keep the cost to a minimum, the Center cannot guarantee the results to be statistically significant at the district level.” The city paid $12,000 for the survey. District 5, 6, and 7 contain the city's housing projects. The western districts have higher crime, more poverty, and lower-performing public schools. They have also given Mayor Hayward the
most headaches—Long Hollow Radio Tower, Manna Food Pantries warehouse, Parole and Probation office, ECUA sewage storage tank, and Government Street Stormwater Pond. Inweekly hired Political Matrix to poll the residents of the west Pensacola districts to see if they view city services and the direction differently than residents on Pensacola’s east side. An interactive voice response method was used to conduct a 17-question telephone survey, which was similar to the Haas Center questionnaire. Political Matrix captured 262 completed studies within Pensacola City Districts 5, 6 and 7. To complete the study, 8,505 telephone numbers of registered voters were supplied by the Escambia County Supervisor of Elections voter list. The polling took place Sunday, Dec. 18 over a four-hour period. After completing the weighting based on population, the study ended up with 227 completed studies. The study has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 5.96 percent. The Haas Center survey claimed the same confidence level with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.6 percent.
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Inweekly compared its survey results for Districts 5, 6, and 7 with the Haas Center results for Districts 1, 3, and 4 to gain perspective on how west and east Pensacola view their city government. Even though District 2 was also underrepresented, 42 responses, Inweekly did not include it in the comparison because it covers the mid-Pensacola area. West Pensacola had a significantly less favorable view of the direction of the city, with less than half believing it’s headed in the right direction.
Direction of the City
East
West
Difference
Right Wrong Not Sure No response
71.0% 8.7% 19.0% 1.2%
45.8% 18.9% 29.1% 6.2%
25.2% -10.2% -10.1% -5.0%
March 2014 North Hill protest of parole center / Courtesy Photo Only two city services received majorities of satisfied and very satisfied votes – Fire Services (68.3%) and Recycling & Sanitation Services (56.0%). (Note: Satisfied includes Very Satisfied and Satisfied responses; Dissatisfied includes Very Dissatisfied and Dissatisfied responses.)
Police, Value of Services, Recreational Services, City Information, and Cleanliness were the areas where West Pensacola most disagreed with East Pensacola.
Police Services
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
79.8% 4.8% 15.5%
47.5% 14.0% 38.3%
32.3% -9.2% -22.8%
Value of Services
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
63.5% 12.7% 23.8%
33.5% 33.5% 33.0%
30.0% -20.8% -9.2%
Recreational Opportunities
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
66.3% 12.7% 21.0%
41.0% 24.6% 34.3%
25.3% -11.9% -13.3%
City Information
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
60.3% 11.5% 28.2%
37.5% 30.4% 32.2%
22.8% -18.9% -4.0%
Fire Services
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
85.7% 0.8% 13.5%
68.3% 8.8% 22.9%
17.4% -8.0% -9.4%
Recycling, Sanitation
East
West
Difference
Cleanliness
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
75.8% 11.5% 12.7%
56.0% 20.7% 23.3%
19.8% -9.2% -10.6%
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
65.9% 9.9% 24.2%
43.2% 29.1% 27.8%
22.7% -19.2% -3.6%
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Several other city services also had double-digit margins of disagreement:
Athletic Facilities
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
56.0% 7.5% 36.5%
35.7% 19.0% 45.3%
20.3% -11.5% -8.8%
City Sidewalks
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
52.8% 16.3% 31.0%
32.6% 40.1% 27.3%
20.2% -23.8% 3.7%
April 2014 floods in East Pensacola / Courtesy Photo The Haas Center survey also graded the city services based on the responses. West Pensacola gave city services lower grades across the board.
Grades for City Services
Community Centers
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
52.8% 6.3% 40.9%
38.8% 18.9% 42.3%
14.0% -12.6% -1.4%
City Streets
East
West
Difference
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
50.8% 21.0% 28.2%
38.7% 35.7% 25.6%
12.1% -14.7% 2.6%
The one area where East and West agreed was in stormwater infrastructure. Neither side was satisfied with the city’s efforts.
Stormwater Infrastructure
East
Satisfied Dissatisfied Neutral/ Unsure
38.1% 29.4% 32.5%
West 30.4% 33.9% 35.7%
Difference 7.7% -4.5% -3.2%
East
West
Difference
4.08 B+
3.52 B-
4.45 A-
3.95 B
3.33 B-
2.93 C
3.41 B-
2.81 C
3.09 C+
2.85 C
3.69 B
3.16 C+
4.03 B+
3.46 B-
3.74 B
3.26 C+
3.74 B
3.24 C+
3.76 B
3.22 C+
Information
3.70 B
3.04 C+
Value
3.66 B
2.96 C
0.56 0.50 0.40 0.60 0.24 0.53 0.57 0.48 0.50 0.54 0.66 0.70
Police Fire City Streets City Sidewalks Stormwater Cleanliness Recycling Community Centers Athletic Facilities Recreational Opportunities
The complete survey is available with the online version of this article on inweekly.net.
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