Ames residents are pleased overall with the quality of the City of Ames, according to a recent Ames City Council survey.

The Council administered its 23rd annual resident-satisfaction survey last spring to 900 randomly selected Ames utility users and 400 random ISU students.

The survey, the results of which were released Nov. 8 at the council’s regular meeting, found 35 percent of people given surveys returned them.

Ninety-seven percent of respondents rated the City of Ames as “good” or “very good.”

“The council looks at information to help them make budget decisions,” said Susan Gwiasda, public relations officer for the City of Ames.

Gwiasda said the eight-page survey asked people about funding issues, such as streets, electricity, water, parks and the library.

Another important issue dealt with law enforcement.

“People said police enforcement is concentrating on parking,” Gwiasda said.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said the police could spend more time focusing on sexually related offenses Gwiasda said.

Survey respondents were given a chance to write additional comments.

Numerous comments were made condemning the construction of a new mall, improvement of snow removal and a better relationship between ISU students and the City of Ames.

Matthew Goodman, member of the City Council, said he had not noticed any specific improvements that had been made in the past as a result of the council’s survey.

“More than anything, my take on it is that it kind of justifies current priorities,” Goodman said.

Goodman said he noticed from the surveys that people care a lot about roads, fire protection and police controlling domestic violence, like Gwiasda said.

“People are wishing to spend less money on art,” Goodman said.

He said he was surprised to find that 26 percent of those surveyed responded against public art programs.

Some ISU students had differing opinions from the survey results.

Rachel Butterworth, sophomore in meteorology, said Ames seems like a good place to raise a family and she thinks people are friendly here.

Butterworth said she agreed with the survey results in the area of snow removal.

“They need to use more salt on the roadways in the winter,” she said.

Jonathan Langford, sophomore in computer engineering, said he thought the city seemed to be pretty clean and it’s still a big enough town to have things to do.

He complained CyRide is not as useful as he thought it would be before he came to Iowa State.

“I came to Ames thinking I wouldn’t need a car because of public transportation, but CyRide does not go everywhere that I need to go,” Langford said.