Residents rate new city 9th out of 300 surveyed

Johns Creek residents are just happy to be there — or so a survey of 300 residents suggests.

Johns Creek has the ninth-best approval ratings out of an internal database of 300 cities similarly polled, said Doug Thompson of the Tarrance Group, the company that conducted the survey.

“You should be very proud of these numbers,” Thompson said. “Your job approval rating is incredibly high. People in Johns Creek feel very good about the city and the quality of life here.”

Consider:

• 74 percent of those surveyed said they felt like the city was moving in the right direction;

• 65 percent approve of the job being done by the mayor and City Council;

• 61 percent believe the city is doing a better job of providing services than Fulton County did;

• 73 percent like the police department;

• 60 percent approve of the city’s privatization arrangement with CH2M Hill, a Colorado firm hired to provide virtually all day-to-day services for the city.

Mayor Mike Bodker said he was pleased with what residents said.

“I think it shows we’ve delivered on our promise to create a better government that services the citizens by being more responsive, fiscally responsible, and transparent,” Bodker said.

The city hired the Tarrance Group in June to provide a snapshot of public attitudes about how the newly founded municipality is doing. The community of Johns Creek incorporated into a city on Dec. 1, 2006. To jump-start the city, organizers followed the model established by Sandy Springs a year earlier by hiring CH2M Hill to staff almost all city positions and oversee delivery of services.

The biggest negative in the survey was traffic: 32 percent said congestion was the biggest problem facing Johns Creek.

The problem is how to pay for fixing it. Respondents also said they were worried about the possibility of their taxes going up. Thompson said an education campaign was needed to spell out to residents that if they aren’t willing to pay increased taxes, the traffic is going to worsen.