Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has a new tool to gather input on public safety from Seattle residents. An online survey, drafted by a team of graduate students at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, will help determine residents’ primary public safety concerns in their own neighborhoods and on public transportation. Previous public safety surveys conducted by the City of Seattle focused on citywide perceptions.

With this survey, the City hopes to have a snapshot of perceptions of the police and public safety on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level. The survey also gives residents an opportunity to anonymously offer their opinions on the police and public safety in Seattle — a new option for this kind of survey.

The new survey asks residents for their opinion on public safety conditions in Seattle’s urban villages, and if there are any urban villages they avoid and why. The survey also asks for opinions on the Seattle Police Department, focusing on community relations and behavior.

In order to obtain input from the entire city, Evans School students will have paper copies delivered to targeted locations, and will actively solicit responses from traditionally underrepresented communities. The City hopes to receive up to 15,000 responses to the survey questions.

Evans School students will do an analysis of initial responses by May and plan to present their findings to the mayor’s Youth and Families Initiative subcabinet in mid-May. ♦

Access the survey at www.seattle.gov/publicsafetysurvey.