Access to family doctors and local health-care services is the top priority of Trent Hills residents by a wide margin, according to a survey done by Trent Hills News.
We asked readers to rate six key issues and to let us know of others on their minds as we head toward a municipal election on Oct. 26.
Ninety-four per cent of the 274 respondents rated health care eight or higher, and three-quarters gave it the maximum score of 10, says Herman van den Berg, business professor emeritus at Lakehead University, who developed the survey and analyzed the results.
“No other issue comes close,” says van den Berg, who now lives north of Warkworth.
The second major issue was preservation of farmland with three-quarters of respondents rating it eight or higher, placing it clearly ahead of the remaining four issues.
Results for the other four topics -- roads and transportation, downtown revitalization, housing, and the Alto high-speed rail proposal – were “statistically indistinguishable from one another,” he says.
The survey ran from August 3 to September 13 and collected 266 responses from residents of Campbellford, Warkworth, Hastings, and rural Trent Hills, and eight from people living outside the area, van den Berg says.
One thing to keep in mind, this is a reader survey, not a poll. Respondents chose to take part. The results describe the priorities of an engaged group of residents, not a random sample, and there is no margin of error.
Concern about health care rises with age, but it is high for every group, van den Berg found. The average ratings run 9.00 for those aged 30 to 49, 9.35 for those 50 to 64, and 9.66 for those 65 and over. Even the lowest of those figures would top the list on its own.
Northumberland County recently announced that it has attracted three new physicians to practise here. They each receive a $100,000 signing bonus paid by an anonymous donor who provided $600,000 for that purpose.
Paula Mason of the Physician Recruitment Advisory Committee told county council on Wednesday that it has attracted five doctors and spent most of the donated money. She said the committee will be asking local municipalities and the county for funding so it can continue compete for doctors.
Protecting prime farmland is also an issue for everybody, the survey shows. Farm and business owners rated farmland preservation no higher than everyone else did.
“Protecting farmland is a shared community value rather than a sectoral interest,” van den Berg says.
Taxpayers’ views on whether they are getting good value for their taxes split three ways. Thirty-five per cent rated it good or very good, 41 per cent said fair, and 22 per cent rated it poor or very poor.
We crafted the list of six topics and asked respondents to add anything else they were concerned about.
Forty-four per cent of the respondents wrote in an issue, most often municipal finance and taxation. “That is a finding in itself: whatever else residents care about, a large share wanted to talk about how the municipality raises and spends money,” van den Berg says.
No single write-in issue was big enough to have belonged on the main list, but municipal finance was the largest theme, raised by 25 readers, nine per cent of respondents.
In a finding that won’t surprise anyone who discusses local politics with their friends or folks at the curling rink, money was the single loudest write-in theme. Twenty-five readers raised taxes, spending, service costs, or budgeting without being asked. Several named specific irritants: water and sewer charges, garbage tags, building permit costs, and consultation fees.
“There is a related signal in the main results: readers who took the trouble to write something in were nearly twice as likely as other respondents to rate value for municipal tax dollars as poor or very poor, 29 per cent compared to 16 per cent,” says van den Berg. “Money was not on the list, and people put it there themselves.”
One thing that stands out to van den Berg “is that residents are each carrying their own concern, strongly felt and different from their neighbour’s.”
Problems with internet and cell service was raised by 14 readers and several said that the recent fibre-optic installation bypassed them.
As it has for years, the new Campbellford bridge divides readers, and the survey caught it in an unusual way. Ten readers wrote in a bridge issue. Some want it funded and finished. Others wrote it in specifically to say it should be stopped, or that the location is wrong. A few rated it zero, which in the survey’s own terms means they were registering opposition rather than importance.
“The split is real and it came entirely unprompted,” van den Berg says.
The new hospital drew several write-ins, mostly supportive of funding it, with at least one reader arguing for upgrading the existing facility instead. The arts drew 10 write-ins, with Westben named more than once by readers who think the municipality under-supports it.
Bravo for doing this! It was very interesting to read. This should be an interesting election, and I think most can agree that politics in general as a topic is engaging more people than ever. I hope this is reflected in the voting “turn out”.