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The City of Carlisle mailed out 1,721 surveys to each household in Carlisle that were included on the city's utility list. The response rate was 35%, with 612 surveys returned and included in the dataset for the results. This is a fairly high result for our city's first venture into a community survey. The City of Springboro, from what we have learned was in the mid to high 40% range. The survey also seemed to be shifted to one side of the age demographic. 54% of the surveys returned where from the ages of 55 and older and only 29% of 45 and younger. This is alarming due to the fact that according to citydata.com the average age for Carlisle is 35.5.

In the coming weeks Carlisle Daily will try to get permission to use some of these questions from the survey in our monthly/weekly polls in hope to gain a better idea of the younger demographic's position on some of the topics in the survey.

The survey strategically seemed to really center around one major topic and a few other issues. The major topic, was the fire department service delivery survey that centered around the communities desire about improving or keeping our current fire emergency delivery system. Carlisle, since its creation in 1967, is staffed by only volunteer firefighters and we do not have any full time firefighters on staff. Carlisle also has a staff paid Fire Chief, Greg Wallace. According to city data site in 2008 salary was $37,812.

In conclusion of the survey, 82% of the respondents said that the overall quality of life in Carlisle was "Good" or "Excellent. 82% also said that their neighborhood as a place to live was "Good" or "Excellent". An outstanding 87% of respondents said that Carlisle was a "Good" or "Excellent" place to raise a family.

The lows of the survey was the code enforcement service of the city with only 48% of the respondents saying this was "Good" or "Excellent", and 20% rated it "Poor" or "Very Poor". There were also write in comments that addressed that the city needed to do a better job in this area.

Other write in comments were the lack of support for any new taxes and several comments directed specifically at the fire chief.

For more on this survey visit the City's website by clicking here.

We want to hear from you though! If you filled out the survey or not we want to hear your opinions. Click here to leave an anonymous or name filled comment! Please let yourself be heard in some of these major issues that surround our city and this survey. CLICK HERE!!