On August 12, The Johnson County Line launched a poll asking readers about the most important issues facing Johnson County right now.
The information serves two purposes. The first is to help inform our coverage. What is important to you is what we should be talking about. The second is to help us ask the right questions when we talk to county and city leaders.
We want our coverage to reflect the questions and concerns we hear from the community.
First, thank you for your fast and thorough response to the poll. Within hours, the numbers were coming in faster than we could keep track of them. Within a day, a picture was beginning to emerge. Now, it is becoming clear.
You have given us lots to think about, and a clear picture of what our readers want to hear about.
First, a short word about the poll.
We don’t believe in push polls. We try to keep our questions simple, neutral and not geared toward producing any particular outcome. This was a voluntary online survey, meaning respondents chose for themselves whether to participate. It is not a scientific random sample of Johnson County residents, nor should it be read as representing the views of Johnson County in its entirety.
The number-crunching stuff is dull, and we don’t need to bury you in it, but we’re happy to answer questions about how the poll was conducted or how the results were calculated.
Now to the results.
The first question was:
Thinking about Johnson County specifically, which THREE of the following do you believe are the most important issues facing the county today?
The three leading answers were:
76% — Economic development and attracting good-paying jobs
50% — Education and the quality of local schools
40% — County taxes and government spending
Because respondents could choose up to three answers, those percentages are not supposed to add up to 100%.
We then asked respondents to choose, from the eight issues we listed, the ONE they considered the highest priority for Johnson County government.
The answer was clear:
Economic development and attracting good-paying jobs.
It wasn’t even close. More than half of respondents selected economic development and good-paying jobs as the county’s highest priority.
Tied behind it were education and the quality of local schools and county taxes and government spending.
There were some differences among age groups. Among respondents under 45, education tended to rank higher as a secondary priority, while taxes and government spending ranked higher among respondents 45 and older. Because some of the individual age groups contain relatively small numbers of respondents, we’ll continue watching those numbers rather than drawing broad conclusions from them yet.
The overwhelming majority of respondents identified themselves as living in Johnson County, either in Mountain City or elsewhere in the county. A small percentage lived outside the county or chose not to answer the question.
We also asked whether Johnson County is headed in the right direction.
Here, the responses reflected considerable dissatisfaction and uncertainty.
About 38% said Johnson County was headed in the wrong direction, while 43% had mixed feelings or chose neither right nor wrong direction. About 9% weren’t sure.
Only about 9% said Johnson County was headed in the right direction.
So, What Did We Learn?
You want to hear more about economic development and jobs.
What should economic development look like? What kinds of development does Johnson County need? What kinds of jobs? What would encourage businesses to locate here—and what kinds of businesses do residents actually want?
These are questions we will continue exploring in the coming weeks, along with others such as how is economic development structured in Johnson County, and who is responsible for what? What plans and priorities are already in place and what should the county’s longer term goals be?
You are also interested in our schools and the education our children are receiving.
What issues concern you most? What would you like to see the schools doing that you feel they aren’t doing now? What are your views on charter schools, homeschooling and school choice?
We’ll ask you those questions, and your answers will help inform future coverage of education in Johnson County.
And you are concerned about county taxes and government spending.
We’ll come back to you with more questions on that issue as well. Do you think county taxes are too high, too low or about right? What should the county’s spending priorities be? Where should more money be spent—and where, if anywhere, should spending be reduced?
That’s how we intend to use this data, now and in the future: to listen, to identify the issues our readers care about, ask better questions, and provide useful context for the conversations taking place across Johnson County.
Thank you for being part of this experiment in better communication.
We look forward to talking with you soon.
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