Do you have opinions about how the city should address short-term rentals, road safety, ski traffic congestion, stormwater infrastructure, business development and trail recreation? The Cottonwood Heights City Council wants to hear about it (if you reside or work within the city’s boundaries, of course).

“If you’re a resident than this is your opportunity to give feedback on a lot of different issues,” said Councilmember Suzanne Hyland. 

Residents are encouraged to sign-up for short, topic-based, surveys that will now be distributed throughout the year. Those who opt-in to participate have the option to select from receiving their surveys through email, text or phone call. 

“Just three or four questions can be done in a minute. It allows for residents that don’t normally respond to not feel burdened with taking too much of their time,” said Mayor Mike Weichers.

The council intends to use the specific and thoughtful resident feedback on hot-topic narrowed-in issues to help them in their decision-making processes.

“By having shorter more numerous and more frequent surveying, it is my hope that the city council will have deeper insights into the needs and wants of our residents and business owners,” said Councilmember Ellen Birrell. 

The city has partnered with FlashVote to distribute, conduct and analyze these resident surveys. FlashVote ensures all personal and demographic information, as well as the responses, are kept anonymous. They also work to gather feedback from residents across all four districts in the city, geographic location, age range, ethnicity and socioeconomic segment. 

“We will be focusing on specific things like short-term rentals and intersection safety,” Hyland said. “We would like to have some representative idea of the broader opinion than just those who come to council meetings.” 

Since the topic of short-term rentals is planned to be discussed during city council meetings in June, the council would like a chance to read through resident opinions before making any decisions. 

The first survey was opened for participation in late April. However, it was not receiving much attention or response from residents  (as of publication) so the council is hoping to encourage more residents to sign-up.

“We haven’t gotten up to the right threshold for the response rate so we are looking for more people to respond,” Hyland said.

Even though the council just recently contracted with FlashVote to distribute and conduct these resident surveys, this is far from the first time the city has surveyed its residents. Previously, Cottonwood Heights partnered with Y2 Analytics to gather resident data through less frequent and longer surveys. These often 65-question surveys were distributed in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022 and 2023. To view our previous coverage of the Y2 resident surveys, visit our Cottonwood Heights City Journals website. Full details and links below. 

“Though the city has been using Y2 Analytics for several years to perform expensive surveys approximately every 18 to 24 months, I found the long and mostly general survey questions often not as relevant and timely as need be,” Birrell said.

In addition to resident surveys, the council may be looking to citizen committees and volunteer groups to provide feedback in the future. They encourage residents to sign up for the city’s newsletter to stay informed on city happenings as well. 

“We hope lots of residents will participate,” Weichers said. 

To view our coverage of previous resident surveys, visit: www.cottonwoodheightsjournal.com and search for “Cottonwood Heights to survey public opinion” and “What Cottonwood Heights Residents Really Think.” 

To stay up to date with Cottonwood Heights news: sign up for city emails by visiting their website (www.cottonwoodheights.utah.gov) and navigating to the Community tab. Under the Connect category, click Emails to be taken to the sign-up form. 

To sign-up to participate in the FlashVote city surveys: call 775-235-2240 to participate by phone or text only; or visit
www.flashvote.com/cottonwoodheights.  λ