By Dan Roach

If you live within the first County Council district boundaries and are registered to vote, you recently received the end-of-year newsletter from my office.

In it I summarized some of the issues that I have been working on. In addition, you were asked to complete a survey sharing your opinion on important county issues.

So far, I have received over 400 surveys and they are still coming in!

The answers to the survey along with your comments are critical in helping me know what our district wants and expects from me as your county councilman.

To those of you who took time to write additional comments, I want to assure you that I am personally reading each and every one of them. I intend to respond to all of you, but please allow time for me to work through the piles!

I thought it would be interesting for you to see what your friends, neighbors, and neighboring communities are thinking. Here are the results:

Question 1: What county issue is important enough to raise taxes? Please check all that apply. Forty precent of you said “none,” 34 percent public safety, 25 percent transportation/roads, 18 percent health and human services, 16 percent parks and recreation, 14 percent needed more information before deciding, 14 percent flood control, and 11 percent environment.

Question 2: What county issue is the most important to you personally? Rank in order from 1-12. Thirty-two percent of you said your number one issue is taxes, 21 percent public safety, 11 percent property rights, 11 percent roads, 6 percent economic development, 5 percent flooding, 5 percent agriculture/open space, 5 percent public transit, 3 percent environment, and  1 percent land use. Zero percent chose parks and recreation or health and human services.

Question 3: The county budget has shrunk 8 percent, and county employment has shrunk 14 percent since 2008. Have budget cuts impacted you personally? Sixty-five percent of you said “no impact” while 33 percent report a moderate impact and 2 percent said severe impact.

The fourth question had to do  with your interaction with different agencies within county government. While some departments received positive feedback, I noted a common concern regarding poor customer service, especially within the Planning and Land Services Department. While each department falls under the Executive office, I will use my influence as a councilmember to work on this problem.

I mentioned in my newsletter that I am trying to be as efficient and cost effective as possible while keeping you informed on county issues. Email is the best way to do that. I encourage any of you that are interested to contact my office and ask to be added to the e-newsletter list. I plan to provide quarterly updates, and an occasional “alert” on the more urgent issues that are time sensitive.

If you would like a newsletter/survey and did not receive one in the mail, please contact my office at 253-798-3635, or droach@co.pierce.wa.us.

Thank you again for your input and please feel free to contact me regarding Pierce County issues at anytime.

Dan Roach is the Pierce County Councilman from District 1.