Results from Gateway News Survey: Approval Rating of Commerce City Council, Staff, Police Department

The Commerce City Police Department had the most responses in this survey with a result of 80% approval of the job the Commerce City Police Department is doing. The comments regarding the Police Department, both negative and positive were mostly regarding a specific incident or interaction. The positive interactions with the Police Department accounted for more then 95% of all the comments in this section.

The Commerce City Council had a 59% approval rating. Generally, people feel there have been a lot of talk and promises and little action. Wal-Mart not coming to the northern range so far seems to be a re-occurring topic of discussion. It was stated numerous times that even with a disapproval vote, the city is in a much better situation “city council wise” than in the past.

The Commerce City Staff had the lowest approval rating with only 47%. Comments included that the city should be more “business friendly”, and staff should “have more empathy for the poorest in our community”. The topic of the Commerce City staff received the least amount of comments, but the comments that were critical were mostly about the very top level staff. Roughly 20% of all the comments in this topic range were positive.

What we learned is that people are still confused between the roles of the Commerce City staff and the Commerce City Council. Many comments pointed out that people are under the impression that the Commerce City Mayor runs the day to day operations of the city. One startling comment from a survey participant thought Commerce City Council member Jim Benson was the city attorney. The fact is, although Mr. Benson is a lawyer; he is by no means the Commerce City Attorney.

In conclusion, many of the residents in Commerce City would benefit from a “back to basics” outline of what exactly their local government is all about, including organizational charts and what role is played and by whom. Thank you to all who participated in this Gateway News survey and we look forward to your future participation in more new and exciting polls and surveys. The Gateway News would encourage other media outlets and local governments to institute their own surveys for a broader range of participation and more wide reaching results.