A survey about Brookhaven citizens’ perception of the quality of life and services provided by the city show a marked improvement compared to 2023.
“Spoiler alert: we’ve have some pretty good results here,” said Brookhaven City Manager Christian Sigman before the presentation.
The poll, conducted by the ETC Institute, which also surveyed citizens in 2023, concluded that residents are most satisfied with police services (88 percent), parks and recreation programs and facilities (80 percent), and maintenance of the city’s buildings and facilities (74 percent).
Robert Heacock, senior manager of the ETC Institute, who presented before the council at its Dec. 2 work session, said the goal was to gather 400 surveys, which was met, with 401 responses. The surveys were mailed and posted online.
The results showed the highest rated quality-of-life items were: as a place to live/raise
family (92 percent), overall quality of life (88 percent), and as a place to work
(84 percent).
Brookhaven was rated significantly higher than the Southeast regional and U.S. averages in most categories of city services assessed, with numbers in the 80 percent range compared with 50 percent in the other two categories, the survey revealed.
Numbers compared to the 2023 poll showed citizens rated 62 of the 78 services higher in the 2025 survey, Heacock said. The 16 categories that saw declines included the width of sidewalks (a decrease of 10 percent) and whether or not Brookhaven was a good place to open a business (a decline of eight percent).
The areas that citizens rated higher in the 2025 survey related to amenities at Lynwood Park (20 percent), the availability of information about city programs/services (18 percent), police safety education programs (17 percent), and the effectiveness of city communication with the public (17 percent).
Heacock complimented the city for taking action to address areas of concern pointed out by respondents in the 2023 survey.
“After one survey, you can tell that the city manager and the staff took this to heart as well as your department heads,” Heacock said.
Areas where respondents spoke of their concerns about the city included break-ins, traffic violations, murder, and drug-related crime, the poll revealed.
Council members asked Heacock for feedback regarding the questions. He suggested reducing the number of questions related to police service, along with refining questions further to discover more specific geographic concerns.