West Richland Citizen Survey: This Thing is Tough!

Anybody else having trouble completing the West Richland Citizen Survey? I don’t know why, but I’m finding some of the questions pretty tough to answer.

You should’ve received it in the mail by now — we got ours last Saturday, I think it was. And the survey is due back by June 10th. The questions cover a variety of quality-of-life issues, like raising kids, city growth, crime/safety, and community events. But some of the specifics are hard to answer.

Define: “Affordable”

There are a few questions where we’re supposed to rate West Richland’s affordability on a scale of 1-to-5:

• Access to affordable housing
• Access to affordable child care
• Access to affordable quality food

Housing: Cari is best-suited to answer the first one since she’s the real estate agent in the family. West Richland housing seems affordable to me, and I know it was the best bang for our buck when we moved here 12+ years ago. But it really depends how you define “affordable.”

Child care: Back in the day, we sent both of our kids to Kids World Child Care on Bombing Range Rd. and they were wonderful. I remember it being more expensive than other child care options, but really … do many people choose the cheapest child care over the best? This is an area where I think you look for the best you can afford, and then you afford it. Maybe this question should ask if we have a good variety of child care options in West Richland.

Food: This is tough because, you know, Yoke’s isn’t the cheapest grocery store … but it’s the only one around. And I’d hate to see it leave. Is it affordable? Well, sure, to some degree. I’ll confess that we do the brunt of our grocery shopping elsewhere, but having Yoke’s in West Richland is a treat and I hope the survey replies don’t knock it because it’s a bit spendier than other choices outside city limits.

Need More Data

The other making the survey tough is that we lack the needed information to answer some of the questions. Here’s an example:

Rate the speed of growth: population / retail / jobs

Well, I think I know that our population is growing quite a bit. And I think the retail sector is growing, but I’m not really positive. And I have no idea about job growth in West Richland. Where would I get information like that? I don’t think it’s on the city web site, but maybe I’m wrong. (They do ask about the city web site, and I’ll be replying that it really needs improving.)

Anyhoo … I’m glad the city is doing this surve. My arguments above shouldn’t be construed as complaints. I actually hope the city does this kind of survey more often in the future.

Thank you for reading this article on the West Richland Real Estate Blog. If you arrived here looking for specific real estate information, or would like to speak with a friendly, fun, professional, and low-pressure real estate agent, please contact Cari via her web site or call her directly at 509 – 430 – 5342 and she’ll be glad to help. Thanks again for visiting!