By EMMA BARTLETT

In early March, Councilwoman Lammis Vargas and Councilwoman Nicole Renzulli created a survey that asked individuals how they would like to see Cranston’s $42.6 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds spent. Cranston Public Library Director Ed Garcia facilitated the survey and shared the results at Monday’s City Council meeting.

The survey, which was offered in English and Spanish, received 1,241 responses in English and three responses in Spanish. While the survey ran from late February to March 31, Garcia said the majority of responses came in that first week and dwindled in the following weeks.

The top three Covid recovery-related priorities 994 respondents would like to see funded through APRA are city infrastructure such as improving roads, sidewalks and city buildings (58 percent of respondents), investments in parks plazas and other public recreation spaces ( 47.9 percent of respondents) and economic relief in the form of direct payments to taxpayers (42.6 percent of respondents).

The survey also allowed individuals to write specific ideas for how ARPA funds should be spent. Garcia broke down the topics which included parks and recreation/sports/open spaces, schools, affordable housing, economic/tax relief and roads/sidewalks.

Parks and recreation received 80 responses with suggestions including improving parks and sports fields, creating better access to fields and having more parks and open spaces. Specific ideas were an indoor sports and recreation center, purchasing land such as the Mulligan’s golf site for open space and reopening Budlong Pool.

The focus on using funds for school centered on improving school infrastructure as well as ventilation and HVAC systems, providing programming to deal with learning loss due to the pandemic and mental health resources for students.

Other themes included planting trees, climate change preparedness and sustainability assistance, reliance and energy efficiency of city buildings, water infrastructure, library funding, assistance to seniors, food insecurity and public safety funding. 

In addition to the PowerPoint presentation Garcia provided, on the docket he included a document with the 337 comments that individuals wrote about what they’d like to see the funds used for.

Overall, the survey had a 89.9 percent completion rate. Eighty-two percent of respondents were white, 9.4 percent chose not to answer and 3.7 percent were Hispanic/Latino/Latina. Additionally, 95.8 percent of respondents were residents, 6.2 percent were business owners, 3.3 percent were non-residents and 1 percent was a nonprofit or stakeholder.

The majority of respondents were between the ages of 40 and 49 years old (with 321 responses) and the lowest recorded age group was those over 80. Garcia said the survey received one comment mentioning that the survey did not take into account the fact that most seniors are not online. This could be a result of the lower response rate from this age group.

Vargas thanked Garcia for facilitating the survey and while she wished there were more than three responses in the Spanish version of the survey, she said that the city did see representation in the English component.

Renzulli said the City of Providence conducted a survey and Cranston’s had more responses. She mentioned the survey was inexpensive and received a good response from the community.

“I think this really was successful,” said Renzulli.

In addition to the survey that Vargas and Renzulli created to gather more responses from the community members on how the ARPA funds should be spent, the city hired a polling company to administer a poll within Cranston which surveyed 400 residents. The city also had two ARPA workshops for the public to voice their thoughts. All this data will be taken into consideration on how the funds will be spent.