County staff previews strategic-plan survey; supervisors press on reach and representativeness

A county staff member told the committee the strategic-plan process will publish an online survey inviting the public to weigh in on priorities drawn from the comprehensive plan. "The bottom line up front relative to next steps is that there will be the publication via our website of the opportunity for the public to weigh in on the prioritization of specific objectives that were contained within the comprehensive plan," the staff member said.

Supervisor Dickinson pressed staff on survey design and distribution, asking whether the survey would present a ranked list or the full set of objectives and how the county would ensure adequate reach across its roughly 145,000 residents. The staff member said the public survey will be narrowed to about the top 20 objectives already prioritized by the board and that staff will mirror prior outreach efforts—posting the survey on the county website, issuing press releases, and sharing links at town meetings. As context, staff said prior outreach produced roughly 400 paper responses historically and about 1,400 electronic responses in a later campaign.