Selected Gahanna residents are asked to express their opinions about city services and give their wants and needs through a biennial survey that started with phone calls Sept. 5 and will continue with a mailing this month.

Public-information manager Brian Hoyt said the survey would include randomly selected registered voters in all four city wards.

If a resident receives a call to participate in the survey, the caller ID will read, "Opinion Access."

"The city encourages those who are randomly selected to take the time to complete the survey," Hoyt said.

The objectives of the survey are to measure changes in citizen satisfaction and citizen perspectives on various issues facing the community and to examine new issues that have arisen since the 2010 survey.

Past survey topics included quality of life in Gahanna, job performance of city officials, satisfaction with city services and city initiatives, including Creekside and a possible income-tax increase.

Assistant city administrator Brandi Braun said the city conducted its first comprehensive resident satisfaction survey in 2008, with the intent to repeat the survey every two years in an effort to monitor satisfaction with city services and gauge the wants, needs and priorities of residents.

When she sought council's funding approval of the survey earlier this year, she said, it's imperative to gauge Gahanna's performance levels and to ensure that the city is providing services that are aligned with the expectations of residents.

For the last survey, 400 randomly selected residents were called evenly among all four wards.

Given the growing population of people who rely solely on cellphones and do not have land lines, Dr. Hugh Clark of CJI Research Corp. recommended that the city alter its approach to account for the change.

The survey is expected to include a sample of 400 people, with 300 being randomly selected and called and 100 residents who do not have a land line being randomly selected and mailed a request to complete an online survey.

The cost of the original survey was $34,000 and included 920 registered voters, with the 2010 follow-up costing $18,500, according to Hoyt.

This year's survey is estimated to cost $22,999 as a result of the additional expense from the mailing.

To view results of the previous surveys, visit http://tinyurl.com/GahannaSurveys.