Village Voices: Community connectedness survey results, call for more participation
Maddie Vincent/The Aspen Times
In December, the Snowmass Sun asked readers to describe how connected they feel the town’s community is, and where they go to interact with others.
With the winter holiday season serving as the defining and most stressful time of the year for some in the village, and with the rise in depression, anxiety and suicide rates across the country and mountain regions especially, the Sun felt it was important to ask readers to engage in looking at how they socialize in Snowmass and how connected they feel to their neighbors.
Over the roughly three-week survey period, 10 people weighed in on this topic. While this is too small a participating group to draw any sort of concrete conclusions, the respondents did provide some interesting feedback and responses.
The majority of those who took the recent survey identified as full-time residents who have been living in Snowmass for more than 20 years.
The majority of respondents also said they would define the sense of community or connectedness in the village as “somewhat connected,” but felt very connected themselves.
“I feel totally connected but I feel disconnected also,” one person wrote. Others expressed the need for better communication between town staff and elected officials and locals, especially those living in employee housing.
Why do people feel both connected and disconnected at the same time? What does that mean, exactly? If more village locals and residents shared their thoughts, maybe the Sun could bring some of these questions to town stakeholders as a sampling of community feeling and perspective, and maybe report some sort of answer. These surveys on the community page are only meant to serve, engage and connect readers, and can’t accomplish their mission without local and visitor participation.
If you have a suggestion about the most recent survey prompt, or if you feel the Sun should be asking better survey questions, we want to hear from you! Please, email your questions, comments and concerns to mvincent@aspentimes.com.
Now, for the next survey: It’s a New Year, a new decade and Town Council has a lot of new projects and redevelopment on its docket to review and approve.
So, the Snowmass Sun is wondering: What projects do you feel are most important to get off the ground this year? And what areas of village life do you feel should be better addressed and preserved over the next decade?
Be sure to share your thoughts through this month’s short, five-minute-or-less Village Votes survey, which will be open to all locals and visitors through Feb. 16.
You can find the survey on the Snowmass Sun Facebook page, or online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NWF86QR.
The Village Voices page is for you, our readers. Let us know what you wish to see here and share your thoughts so we can make it the best community page possible.
