Survey of Residents : For Most, Santa Ana Satisfying

By BOB SCHWARTZ

June 22, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Santa Ana residents are more satisfied with their urban surroundings than one might think, according to a survey conducted by two Cal State Fullerton researchers. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement that Santa Ana is a good place to live, while 33% disagreed, said Richard T. Serpe, director of the school’s Social Science Research Center. (Respondents who “strongly” agreed or disagreed are included in those totals).

“I expected to find answers that might point out some problems,” said Serpe, presenting the findings of the survey at a Greater Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce meeting Tuesday morning. “But the overwhelming finding was that people feel good about living in Santa Ana. No matter what we asked, we found that pattern.”

251 Residents Surveyed

Serpe and Tony Rimmer, an associate professor of communications, surveyed 251 Santa Ana residents by telephone last December about their image of the city and its schools, business climate and political institutions.

The phone numbers were randomly selected from lists of registered voters in the city. Of the 251 respondents, 77% were Anglo and 12% Latino. Nearly half of Santa Ana’s population is Latino but many are not registered to vote.

The Chamber of Commerce commissioned the survey for about $3,500, said chamber president Michael Metzler. The chamber is spending more than $300,000 this year on its “Santa Ana Proud” program, which is aimed at bolstering the city’s image, and the survey will give the chamber an idea of where it needs to concentrate its public relations effort, Metzler said.

Respondents were asked about 60 questions, including some about age, income, ethnicity and political affiliation, meant to provide a statistical profile of the survey group. While the responses generally show that people are “pretty pleased” about living in Santa Ana, they are clearly more pleased with some aspects of life in the county seat than with others, Serpe said. About 64% agreed that Santa Ana is a good place to work, and 71.3% felt the city has a bright economic future. But only 44% consider the city a good place to raise children, and fewer than half of the respondents--44.6%--agreed with the statement that public schools in Santa Ana are as good as other schools in Orange County. “The public schools in Santa Ana have some work to do with respect to (their) image within the community,” Serpe and Rimmer wrote in a report analyzing the findings.

Residents were most dissatisfied with the way the city was dealing with four types of crime: violent crime, property crime, gang activity and drugs. More than 70% said they were dissatisfied with the city’s efforts to combat gangs and drugs, and almost 68% were unhappy with the level of property crimes. Violent crimes presented somewhat less of a problem to most respondents, with about 59% saying they were dissatisfied with efforts in that area. Serpe said the level of discontent displayed over the crime issue “is the pattern we expect to see in every urban area in the United States.”

Responses to some questions varied with party affiliation and area of residence, the researchers said. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see Santa Ana in an overall positive light, and residents who live south of Warner Avenue were more optimistic than those who live in the central and northern parts of the city, Serpe and Rimmer wrote in the report. Age and length of residence in the city also appeared to play a role in whether or not respondents considered Santa Ana to be a good place to live, Serpe said.

“We found that people who lived in Santa Ana the longest, and consequently are the oldest in age, were most likely to disagree with that perception” that the city is a good place to live, he said.

SANTA ANA IMAGE STUDY

The Greater Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce commissioned a poll in which 251 residents were interviewed during the evenings of Dec. 7 through 11, 1987. The margin of error is plus or minus 6%. These were the questions:

Is Santa Ana is a good city in which to live?

Strongly Agree: 8.4%

Agree: 56.6%

Disagree: 27.1%

Strongly Disagree: 6%

Don’t Know: 2%

Is Santa Ana is a good city in which to raise children?

Strongly Agree: 5.2%

Agree: 39%

Disagree: 37.5%

Strongly Disagree: 12.7%

Don’t Know: 5.6%