Daily schedules being what they are, most of us don’t stop to think about the larger issues affecting our lives. Maybe in the midst of paying bills or balancing the checkbook we wonder where all of our money is going, or during another murderous 9-to-5 stretch we wonder what would happen if we just pulled up and left town, but for the most part, those concerns aren’t always on our minds.
That’s what makes this week’s release of the “Many Voices, One Valley 2007” report by the Dyson Foundation and Marist College Institute for Public Opinion so interesting. The study, a survey conducted in seven Hudson Valley counties among 4,320 residents, sought to examine the priorities of citizens throughout the area. Not surprisingly, affordable healthcare topped the list, with many surveyed families saying they had experienced inadequate coverage. In the 2002 version of the study, healthcare ranked third on the list of concerns, but given the way related costs have risen in such a short amount of time, the jump was inevitable. Aside from the healthcare issue, though, there were a number of other interesting insights revealed about the priorities of valley residents.
The No. 1 concern in 2002, keeping businesses in the area, slipped to No. 2 this time around but is obviously still a major priority for residents. And reducing taxes, a priority that ranked No. 9 in the 2002 survey, shot to No. 3 thisy ear, in response to skyrocketing tax rates in the area. Some of the higher-ranking priorities from 2002 – improvements to educational quality, services for senior citizens and creation of new jobs – ranked lower here.
And perhaps most unsettling (though not necessarily unexpected), many of the survey’s respondents worried that local leaders don’t share their opinions on major issues – 60 percent expressed that view in this survey, up from 50 percent in 2002. That kind of disconnect is troubling, particularly as politicians debate the issues that will decide the 2007 campaigns in the coming weeks. That level of dissatisfaction in public officials makes it tough to believe that simply electing new leaders, or putting faith in old ones, will be enough to shake people from their belief that our beautiful valley is becoming a less desirable place to live.
In fact, Dyson Foundation Executive Vice President Diana Gurieva talked about a feeling of “frustration” for valley residents during her remarks at the survey’s release. “The people who make the decisions aren’t always listening,” she said, which is one of the reasons why the Institute and Dyson Foundation are making sure the survey is distributed to local politicians as well as released publicly.
The more information that the people who govern the day-to-day lives of Hudson Valley citizens have, the better off we’ll be. If nothing else, that should be the lesson of this survey – now leaders must take these concerns to heart. Only by solving the problems that matter most to people will our politicians be doing their jobs.