Mayor Ashton Hayward’s Pensacola Community Survey was skewed towards the city’s least diverse, more affluent eastern districts. Using the survey produced by the UWF Haas Center, the mayor touts that 69.3 percent of his constituents believe the city is in the right direction and grade most of the city services highly.
However, an analysis of the methodology has revealed that if you lived on the east of Pensacola in Districts 1, 3 and 4, you were twice as likely to be included in the survey than if you lived on the west side in Districts 5, 6 and 7.
The survey tracked the answers of 444 respondents. Districts 1, 3 and 4 comprised 252 of the respondents; Districts 5, 6 and 7 only 123.
However, Districts 5, 6 and 7 have more residents than Districts 1, 3 and 4 – 43.3 percent of city residents vs. 41.1 percent, according to the Haas study.
The population of Pensacola is 30.4 African-American and other minorities. Districts 1, 3 and 4 are 89.4 percent white.
Mayor Hayward’s survey doesn’t reflect the views of all the City of Pensacola. It fails to include the voices of the people who have had the most issues with his administration, such as Long Hollow radio tower, Parole & Probation office, firing of fire chiefs, and ECUA storage tank.
The west side of Pensacola isn’t the same as the east side. It’s why Mayor Hayward partnered with Escambia County, University of West Florida, Pensacola State College, Escambia County School District, Escambia Community Clinics and United Way on a Promise Zone application earlier this year. The Promise Zone included much of Districts 5, 6 and 7.
In the application submitted by the mayor, he detailed the problems facing the west side:
* Average poverty rate is 35.42% with poverty blocks as high as 62.6%.
* Unemployment rates run as high as 19% in some neighborhoods.
* Some families spend as much as 90% of their income on rent.
* There are four public housing projects in the zone.
* Only a third of residents attained only a High School degree and nearly 22.3% attained less.
* Violent crime rate for the Promise Zone is more than double the rate for the entire City of Pensacola—1816.6 compared to 894—and nearly four times the state rate of 487.1
* Murder/manslaughter rate is 27.4 in the Promise Zone, while the Pensacola and Florida rates are 13.2 and 5.2 respectively. Drug arrests in the Promise Zone numbered 534 in 2015.
Inweekly believes the west side of Pensacola deserves to be heard, too. We will conduct a phone survey of west Pensacola, asking the same questions that are in the Haas Center survey.
The results may be the same as the mayor’s survey. Whatever they are, we will share them with you, Mayor Hayward and Pensacola City Council.