Poll: Dade residents satisfied with basic government services

Dade residents are fed up with rampant growth and traffic in their neighborhoods, but satisfied with basic government services like police, fire and trash pickup.

Those are the conclusions from a wide-ranging survey of attitudes toward Dade city and county governments.

The poll, conducted by Florida International University researchers, found residents have strong opinions about what their government is doing right and doing wrong.

Residents of Dade’s cities and its unincorporated areas generally agree that ambulance, police and fire service is pretty good. For the most part, they give their libraries and garbage service high ratings.

But in many areas of Dade, roads have too many potholes, traffic is too congested, code enforcement is lousy and zoning decisions have hurt neighborhoods, the poll suggests.

At the same time, the poll showed a surprising lack of support at this point for breakaway incorporation movements aimed at turning Dade into a string of smaller cities.

That may provide reason for cheer at county hall, which is battling one of the most serious secessionist movements in Metro’s 28-year history.

“When it comes to the incorporation movement, the train seems to be moving faster than citizen opinion,” said FIU professor Milan Dluhy, who directed the survey.

Metro commissioners asked for the survey earlier this year to find out how voters feel about Metro.

The reason: Leaders from several communities in unincorporated Dade - Aventura, Pinecrest, Destiny and others - are pushing to form cities in those areas. They say smaller governments will be able to provide better services and provide more representative government.

Researchers at FIU’s Institute of Government conducted a random telephone survey of 5,166 Dade residents in April and May.

They found:

• Only about one in five residents of unincorporated Dade favor breaking way from Metro to form new cities. Support is soft even in the Pinecrest and Destiny neighborhoods. The finding, however, might be colored by residents’ lack of information about the issue, the poll suggests.
• At the same time, residents generally favor measures to strip power from Metro commissioners and bring it closer to home. A majority, for example, favor neighborhood zoning boards and community-based administrative centers to handle citizen problems.
• Residents may want to reshape the Metro Commission. Nearly two-thirds in unincorporated areas favor adding commission seats so distinct unincorporated areas such as West Kendall can elect their own commissioners.

Leaders of local incorporation movements said they aren’t discouraged by the poll.

Gary Matzner, lawyer and leader of the Pinecrest movement, said though the poll was probably valid in some respects, he still detects widespread support for incorporation in his area. He and other community leaders have collected about 2,000 signatures, and 20 neighborhood groups back the incorporation drive.

“I know that what we are doing is good for the community,” Matzner said.