Batavia gets high marks from folks in town

Batavians are pretty happy here.

That's according to the city's 2007 residents survey, in which 40 percent said the city was an excellent place to live and 55 percent said it was a good place to live.

Slightly over 4 percent rated the city a fair place to live, while .2 percent said it was poor.

"This survey is a really valuable tool," City Administrator Bill McGrath told the city council on Monday night. "Now that we're into our fourth year of the survey, we're starting to see trends."

Ratings of the city as a residence, a place to raise children and a place to retire have remained consistent, city officials said.

The city mailed surveys to 1,585 households picked at random last November and received 452 responses, a 29 percent response rate.

Residents said their most important goal for the city was enhancing and revitalizing downtown, then improving traffic circulation and working with residents to resolve community issues.

In terms of satisfaction with city services, residents were least satisfied with the revitalization of downtown Batavia, traffic and affordable housing.

Although the city was rated favorably as a place to raise children, ratings of the city as a good place to retire got lower marks.

Residents who rated the city as an excellent place to retire comprised 12.4 percent of responses; good, 38.1 percent; fair, 29.2 percent; poor, 14.2 percent, and very poor, 3.5 percent.

McGrath said city council committees would be looking into the results further at future meetings.

He said the full survey results would be posted soon on the city's Web site, www.cityofbatavia.net.

The margin of error for the survey was 4.5 percentage points.