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The city of Breckenridge recently released survey results from a community survey that was open through the beginning of May. Since 2022, the city has conducted a survey of residents to receive input on how the city is performing. (Archive photo)
As an ongoing effort to seek input from city residents regarding the operations and future of the city of Breckenridge, a survey was conducted to receive feedback through May and recently presented by the city.
Since 2022, the city has conducted a survey of residents to receive input on how the city is performing, with the last survey available in April 2025. The most recent survey was open through Friday, May 1.
“Three years ago, we did the strategic planning. Every year we have been doing a citizen survey. We’ve done a few open houses as well, trying to get feedback on what is important to them and we do this in alignment with our budget because all the expenditures are in alignment with the budget,” City Manager Cynthia Northrop said Tuesday, May 5.
The goals developed from previous community input include investing in infrastructure, employees, beautifying the city, promoting economic development and tourism as well as transparency and communication.
The 18-question survey asked questions such as how long the respondent has lived in the city, their age group, if they have children under the age of 18 and how they find out about city services.
“We always ask the same questions, so we can kind of get a gauge of where we’re at from year to year,” Northrop said.
The city received double the responses from the previous year with a total of 139 for the 2026 survey and 70 from the 2025 survey. Respondents primarily lived over 10 years in the city and were between 25 years old and 65 years old and older.
The respondents’ top three ways to find out about city services were through Facebook, word of mouth and the city’s website, with the majority of respondents saying they either rarely, sometimes or never attend city commission meetings.
Six questions on the survey asked the respondents to provide a five-star rating scale from poor to excellent regarding the quality of city services since the last survey.
The services that could be rated were the Breckenridge Police Department, Animal Control, Breckenridge Fire Department, Public Services Department, Public Works Department and the Developmental Services Department.
BPD was rated 3.3 out of 5, a drop of 0.3 from the previous year. Animal Control was rated 2.8 out of 5, a drop of 0.1 from the previous year. BFD was rated 4.3 out of 5, an increase of 0.1 from the previous year.
The public service department was rated 3.3 out of 5, a drop of 0.3 from the previous year. The Public Works Department was rated 2.2 out of 5, a drop of 0.4 from the previous year. The Development Service Department was rated a 2.5 out of 5, a drop of 0.3 from the previous year.
The final two questions were short answer and asked the respondents to provide if they feel the city is doing well and what it needs to work on.
Respondents provided positive feedback on the streets improvements, leadership and progress, economic development and downtown beautification, transparency and communication, parks and on the Breckenridge Police Department, Animal Control Officer and employees.
Noted improvements by respondents was for infrastructure such as streets and water, substandard housing and code enforcement. Respondents wanted RVs removed on residential and commercial lots not designated for RVs.
Respondents also noted the city needs to work on economic development and downtown to bring in large development projects to attract population growth. Additionally, the respondents noted that the city needs to lower the cost of utility bills and property taxes.
The respondents requested more activities for children and stated that tackling crime, particularly with drugs in the city, was something that needed development.
