Community survey and civic dialogue presented to City Council shows broad support for infrastructure investment, developer cost accountability and greater transparency
The survey says that Folsom residents want greater attention on infrastructure, traffic and the long-term costs of growth. Those priorities emerged from the city’s “Folsom Ideas for Change” community survey and civic dialogue conducted in partnership with Change.org and presented to the Folsom City Council Tuesday night.
The months-long effort collected 430 ideas from 1,039 residents, generated 68,123 votes on those ideas and ultimately brought 168 residents together for a deeper discussion focused on growth and infrastructure.
The presentation did more than put the findings before the council. Following the discussion, council members gave city staff direction to continue working with Change.org on ways to move the community’s highest-priority ideas toward practical implementation. The council also agreed that Change.org may identify Folsom as a city it has worked with, permission city officials had withheld when the partnership began until they could evaluate the completed process and its results.
Behind the numbers were many concerns familiar to people who live and work in Folsom — sitting in traffic around East Bidwell Street and Highway 50, wondering when neighborhood streets will be repaved, seeing parks and trails that need continued maintenance and questioning whether new development will generate enough money to maintain the infrastructure that comes with it.
Those everyday concerns translated into some of the strongest areas of agreement in the survey.
While participants did not agree on every issue — particularly when it came to housing, transit, taxes and the pace of development — the results showed substantial agreement across political and demographic lines on several core themes. New growth should cover its long-term costs, existing infrastructure needs greater attention, the city should make its capital priorities more transparent and residents want solutions to persistent traffic congestion.
The City Council directed staff in April to begin the process with Change.org through its nonprofit Local Civic Dialogues program. According to the city staff report, the platform is intended to identify common priorities, broaden participation and provide local governments with representative resident feedback that can be used in future policy, priority and planning decisions.
City Manager Bryan Whitemyer said Tuesday that one of the important aspects of the process was that city officials did not steer participants toward subjects the council or staff were already discussing.
“We didn’t kind of impose or direct the conversation,” Whitemyer said. “We didn’t let them know, like, ‘Hey. Here’s what we’re working on. We just wanted to see if you’re okay with that.’ What I like about this is it came out of them without us leading them on.”
Whitemyer said that made the results useful in another way: several priorities residents independently identified closely matched issues the council and city staff had already been addressing.
The process began with a broad question: “What would positive change look like in Folsom?”
More than 1,000 residents responded, submitting hundreds of ideas and then voting on suggestions submitted by others. The initial phase was designed not simply to determine which ideas received the most votes overall, but to identify subjects that resonated among residents who differed on other issues.
Elijah Goldberg, program manager for Local Civic Dialogues at Change.org, told the council the initial online phase was open to any Folsom resident who wanted to submit an idea for positive change and vote on suggestions submitted by others.
“The goal is to identify shared goals that bridge across political differences,” Goldberg said.
Among the ideas repeatedly raised were calls for reliable funding for parks, trails, roads, storm drains and open space; less expansion until infrastructure catches up; greater assurance that future maintenance is funded when infrastructure is built; developer fees that reflect actual costs; traffic improvements along East Bidwell Street and Folsom Boulevard; and long-term planning for the city’s financial sustainability.
Goldberg told the council that growth and development rose to the top as organizers looked for issues attracting support across otherwise differing groups.
“One idea that was particularly — that received universal support was to fix the highway traffic and East Bidwell issues,” Goldberg said.
Growth and development emerged as one of the strongest areas of common concern in the results.
“Less expansion, more focus on infrastructure” received a 93% bridging score across the groups identified in the survey. The proposal that infrastructure should not be built unless funding for its future maintenance is earmarked received an 86% score.
Residents also expressed strong support for identifying consistent and adequate funding to maintain parks, trails, roads, storm drains and open space, which received an 89% bridging score.
The survey also found strong interest in continuing the type of public engagement used in the Ideas for Change process. A proposal calling for more outreach because many working families cannot attend traditional in-person government meetings received an 88% bridging score.
Traffic produced some of the strongest agreement in the entire process.
The idea of addressing the traffic problems at East Bidwell Street and Highway 50 received a 100% bridging score. Other transportation-related responses called for prioritizing the Empire Ranch Road interchange to relieve pressure on the East Bidwell interchange and completing Alder Creek Parkway to Prairie City Road.
Residents also supported coordinating intersection signals along Folsom Boulevard with light rail trains, which received an 88% bridging score, and completing missing bicycle and pedestrian connections.
Enforcement of e-bike rules and regulations, particularly around middle schools at dismissal time, received a 95% score, making it another of the strongest areas of agreement.
Other highly rated ideas were not directly related to growth. Concern about trash along White Rock Road, particularly in areas affected by construction, received a 91% bridging score. Calls for more natural areas and less suburban sprawl received 89%, while stronger enforcement against chronic code violators received 88%.
Parks and recreation priorities included maintaining park drinking fountains, increasing shade trees along walking areas and expanding the city’s Adopt a Trail program so businesses could sponsor sections of trail and help fund repairs and improvements.
Public safety-related responses included calls for stronger code enforcement, development of long-term funding for police and fire services and concerns about homelessness and loitering in Historic Folsom.
The initial survey also demonstrated that Folsom residents were far from monolithic in how they viewed the city’s future.
Change.org’s analysis organized participants into broad opinion groups based on their responses. The largest, described as “Civic Infrastructure Stewards,” emphasized long-term infrastructure stewardship, public access, services for aging residents and unhoused people, transit investment, accessible public spaces and partnerships with State Parks, tribes and community organizations.
Members of that group strongly supported a long-term financial sustainability plan and reliable funding for existing parks and trails. They also overwhelmingly opposed proposals such as investing a portion of the city’s reserve fund in Bitcoin, allowing city services to be outsourced without voter approval and annexing land for a data center.
Another group, identified as “Balanced Growth Skeptics,” questioned the city’s current growth model and favored greater emphasis on mobility, walkability and traffic enforcement. Members supported expanded public transit, native landscaping and reducing car dependence while also arguing that new development should pay for itself.
The smallest and most distinct group, identified as “Small Town Traditionalists,” placed greater emphasis on preserving Folsom’s small-town identity, slowing expansion, reducing apartment development, strengthening enforcement and directing infrastructure spending toward existing residents.
That group strongly opposed additional light rail on Bidwell Street and was skeptical of expanded bus service, transit investment and higher-density housing. Yet members strongly supported the same call heard elsewhere in the survey for less expansion and more attention to infrastructure, with 96% of the group approving that idea. E-bike enforcement received 95% support within the group.
It was where those differing viewpoints overlapped that the survey began to paint a clearer picture of what Folsom residents could agree on.
Change.org determined that growth and infrastructure was both highly relevant to residents and an area where the city has significant policy authority. Permitting, development agreements, maintenance budgets and zoning were among the municipal tools identified as areas in which Folsom can take action.
The issue also presented clear trade-offs: accommodating housing growth, requiring developers to fund infrastructure, preserving the city’s character and maintaining long-term financial health.
That led to a second phase June 24, when 168 Folsom residents participated in a facilitated online civic dialogue.
Goldberg said Change.org constructed what it described as a representative “mini-public” for the two-hour session, with participants recruited to reflect Folsom in terms of age, sex, race and political affiliation. Participants received briefing materials and a briefing video before the dialogue, then moved into small groups to discuss the policy options in greater depth.
Discussions were held primarily in groups of five to eight people through three focused breakout sessions. Residents were compensated for their time participating in the surveys and dialogue.
After the discussion, participants were polled on specific policies related to growth and infrastructure.
To measure agreement across political lines, Change.org used what it called a “bridging score.” Support for each proposal was calculated among Democrats, Republicans and independents, with the lowest percentage among those groups becoming the proposal’s score.
That meant an idea could not receive a high bridging score simply by being overwhelmingly popular with one political group. It needed significant support among all three.
Goldberg described the standard to council members as a way of identifying policies with “super majority support across different political groups.”
“So a policy with an 88% bridging score is one that has a minimum of 88% across those political groups,” Goldberg said.
One of the clearest conclusions involved the cost of future development.
The principle that “new growth must pay its own full lifetime cost” received a 96% bridging score. The concept calls for ensuring new development comes with sufficient revenue to cover its infrastructure, maintenance and service costs over the long term. Support measured 96% among Democrats, 100% among Republicans and 97% among independents.
Another principle, attracting restaurants, shops and services residents want while prioritizing infill over sprawl and requiring projects to demonstrate that they cover the costs they create, received a 91% bridging score.
Spending more money now to catch up on the existing maintenance backlog rather than allowing deferred repairs to become more expensive received an 80% score.
Residents showed somewhat less agreement when the discussion moved toward new revenue. Pairing any new revenue proposal with an independent budget audit and publicly available line-item dashboard received a 73% bridging score. Using limited short-term debt for urgent repairs where delaying the work would ultimately cost substantially more received 53%.
Goldberg said the dialogue ultimately produced 14 policies that reached the consensus threshold. Those policies were grouped into three broad areas: prioritizing infrastructure investment, making growth cover its costs and identifying potential revenue for infrastructure.
Councilmember Mike Kozlowski noted during the presentation that several of the recommendations were not entirely new to City Hall. He pointed specifically to efforts involving full cost recovery through the city’s fee schedule, saying the council has considered that subject several times and has had to make policy judgments about how much of various city costs can reasonably be recovered.
Kozlowski asked whether the process had uncovered a distinctly new idea that could be acted upon immediately or whether much of its value was in confirming priorities the city had already identified.
“I’m encouraged by validating some of the things that we’ve spent time focused on,” Kozlowski said.
Whitemyer said that validation was significant precisely because residents arrived at many of those priorities without first being told what city officials were already working on.
He also said the results point to another challenge for the city: communicating more clearly with residents about projects, priorities and work that is already underway.
“Now we have this feedback. How do we actually deliver something?” Whitemyer said.
He said the city has begun taking steps to provide more advance information about infrastructure work, including putting signs out before projects begin so residents know what is coming and where they can find additional information.
Whitemyer said the next phase will involve not only listening to what residents identified but showing residents what the city does in response.
The resulting policy recommendations were organized around the three broad areas identified through the dialogue.
Among infrastructure investment ideas, publishing the city’s infrastructure priority list received an 88% bridging score. The proposal would make public not only which projects are funded but the criteria used by city staff to weigh competing maintenance and capital projects, including life-safety risk, asset condition, service disruption and cost.
Change.org placed that recommendation among the first policies for implementation because it can be handled administratively without an ordinance or council vote. The organization offered to provide examples from other cities, assist with documentation, develop a public-facing format and benchmark Folsom’s maintenance investment against comparable communities.
For residents, the practical result would be a clearer answer to a basic question: What does the city believe needs to be fixed first, and why?
The same theme emerged when residents discussed street maintenance.
A proposal to publish a multi-year, street-by-street pavement repair schedule tied to engineering condition data received a 74% bridging score. The idea would allow residents to look up their street and see when it is scheduled for work rather than having to wonder where their neighborhood falls in the city’s paving plans.
“I’d like to see a schedule of what they’re going to fix and when,” one female participant, age 40 to 65, told researchers.
Another participant said publishing the schedule made sense because residents would know when their street was going to be repaved rather than repeatedly asking or feeling “in the dark.”
Support for the road schedule measured 74% among Democrats, 76% among Republicans and 79% among independents. According to the proposed workplan, the city’s pavement-management schedule is already under development, and Change.org offered to help create a resident-facing lookup format.
The survey also produced significant support for changing the way Folsom accounts for costs created by development.
Updating the city’s fee schedule toward full cost recovery received an 88% bridging score, with 96% support among Democrats, 88% among Republicans and 91% among independents.
Put more simply, the proposal is intended to ensure development and permit fees reflect what those services actually cost the city so existing residents do not subsidize applicants, while also preventing the city from charging more than the documented cost of providing the service.
Implementation would require a cost-of-service study followed by City Council consideration of a fee resolution. Change.org proposed researching similar studies in comparable cities, developing cost benchmarks, assisting with a consultant request for proposals and preparing model documents for future council consideration.
Kozlowski’s questions on the issue underscored the distinction between identifying a broadly supported principle and determining exactly how it would work in city policy. He noted that the council has addressed cost recovery several times and has previously had to make value judgments about how much of certain city costs should be recovered through fees.
Goldberg acknowledged that some recommendations were not new ideas, but said their placement among the highest priorities reflected community support for moving them forward. He pointed to the infrastructure priority list, road repaving schedule and small-business strategy as examples of ideas that could be pursued within the city’s existing authority.
Another development-related proposal would establish a services tier for new Community Facilities Districts.
In everyday terms, the concept seeks to make sure that when development brings a new park, trail or landscaped median to Folsom, it also brings a reliable source of money to take care of it in the years ahead rather than eventually handing the city an asset without the money needed to maintain it.
The proposal would make dedicated annual maintenance funding a standard component of development agreements for those improvements.
It received an 85% bridging score, including 91% support among Democrats, 85% among Republicans and 97% among independents. Change.org ranked its potential impact as high and said it could be implemented administratively through the city’s standard development-agreement template.
Another proposal receiving the same 85% bridging score would require long-term cost projections when major projects are brought forward for approval.
Before the City Council approves a major new project, the proposal calls for a written 20- to 30-year forecast of operating, maintenance and replacement costs, with longer projections for water and sewer infrastructure.
Support was identical among all three political groups — 85% among Democrats, Republicans and independents.
The proposal could be implemented through a council policy or resolution modifying the city’s project-approval checklist. Change.org offered to research similar lifecycle-cost policies elsewhere, create model resolution language and develop a standardized forecast template.
Economic development was another significant piece of the findings.
A local small-business retention strategy received a 79% bridging score. The concept includes reducing permitting barriers, creating a small-business incubator and considering targeted incentives in key commercial districts to help locally owned businesses remain open while strengthening the city’s sales-tax base.
Support measured 79% among Democrats, 85% among Republicans and 82% among independents.
Change.org proposed researching small-business retention and incubator programs in other communities, including their effects on sales-tax revenue, and drafting a proposal for Folsom based on those findings.
Some residents participating in the dialogue pointed to neighboring communities as examples of a more business-friendly approach.
“It’s been working really well in the city of Rancho,” one female participant, age 40 to 65, said during the dialogue, referring to friends who do business there and describing the community as business-friendly.
Another participant said Folsom could more actively recruit businesses to consider locating in the city, while a third said making the city friendlier to businesses could provide another avenue for increasing revenue.
Formal public-private partnerships and corporate sponsorships also received substantial support.
That proposal envisions a formal sponsorship and naming-rights program for parks, trails, courts and other city facilities as another potential source of maintenance revenue without requiring a new tax.
It received a 74% bridging score, including 77% support among Democrats, 80% among Republicans and 74% among independents.
Implementation could involve a council-adopted sponsorship and naming-rights policy, with Change.org researching comparable programs and helping draft a model policy for city staff to tailor.
Targeted economic-development incentives received a 68% bridging score.
Those could include fee credits, expedited permitting or infrastructure commitments aimed at attracting commercial and employment uses to land already served by roads and utilities, potentially producing additional revenue without requiring new infrastructure.
Change.org proposed researching which incentives have worked in comparable communities, including the fiscal return from sales-tax-sharing agreements and fee-credit structures.
Goldberg told council members that Change.org considers five policies particularly actionable in the near term: publishing the infrastructure priority list, publishing the road repaving schedule, developing a small-business retention strategy, creating a strategy for partnerships and sponsorships involving public land and facilities, and creating a system for economic-development incentives.
The organization is proposing to provide research, policy writing, prototypes and other policy-development assistance as the city evaluates how those recommendations could be put into practice.
“We’re proposing a third step of supporting implementation of these policies,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg said Change.org identified the initial group because the policies are actionable, have meaningful potential impact and are within the city’s authority to pursue.
Another proposal calls for taking an inventory of underused land Folsom already has.
The idea received a 74% bridging score and would identify locations where additional commercial uses could potentially be accommodated on already-served land, producing tax revenue without extending roads, utilities or other infrastructure into undeveloped areas.
Support measured 74% among Democrats, 90% among Republicans and 85% among independents.
City staff, working with geographic information system data, could compile the inventory without an ordinance. Change.org offered to research approaches to converting idle parcels to revenue-producing uses and develop an initial GIS inventory using publicly available parcel and zoning information.
Residents also supported a more comprehensive examination of the condition of Folsom’s existing public assets.
A Facility Condition Assessment accompanied by a public dashboard received a 70% bridging score. The proposal envisions an engineering inventory of city-owned buildings, parks, streets, trails, bridges and storm drains, with each rated according to condition and accompanied by estimated replacement costs and timelines.
For residents, the end result would be a publicly accessible place to see the condition of city assets and what it may cost to repair or replace them.
Unlike several of the administrative recommendations, however, a formal assessment would require a city budget appropriation and procurement process. Change.org proposed exploring a tiered approach beginning with an informal staff assessment, followed by formal engineering evaluations where they would provide the most value.
The survey also tested an issue that has historically been a more difficult conversation in Folsom: whether residents would consider paying additional taxes to address infrastructure needs.
A half-cent sales tax received a 68% bridging score, with 72% support among Democrats and 68% among both Republicans and independents.
The concept presented to residents included named projects, citizen oversight and published audits, with the rationale that visitors and shoppers from outside Folsom would also contribute toward addressing the city’s maintenance backlog. The estimated revenue was approximately $14 million annually.
Comments from participants showed that support did not necessarily mean enthusiasm for paying another tax.
“If it had a half-cent sales tax with a 5- or 10-year sunset clause, I think people could get behind that just to clean up the backlog and park maintenance,” one male Republican participant, age 65 or older, told researchers.
“I don’t like to pay more taxes, but if that’s going to actually go towards something beneficial, then I’d consider voting for it,” a male Democratic participant, age 25 to 39, said.
A third participant suggested a time-limited half-cent tax lasting approximately 10 years could provide a way to address looming maintenance needs while the city determines how to fund them over the longer term.
Change.org placed the half-cent tax among recommendations to be reassessed rather than pursued immediately.
Because it would require a ballot measure, voters would ultimately decide whether to approve it. A general, unrestricted sales tax would require a simple majority, while a special tax dedicated to a particular purpose would require two-thirds approval.
Change.org suggested future analysis could include possible sunset provisions, citizen oversight, published audits and research into why comparable tax measures succeeded or failed. Its proposed workplan also calls for a future explanation of what has changed since Folsom voters considered Measure G.
Another potential revenue source — increasing the city’s transient occupancy tax from its current 8% to between 10% and 12% — received a 71% bridging score.
Support measured 81% among Democrats, 71% among Republicans and 85% among independents. The proposal was estimated to generate approximately $1 million to $3.65 million annually, with the cost falling primarily on hotel visitors.
Change.org categorized the idea as a longer-term possibility because it would require voter approval and would need to be considered in relation to the city’s existing Tourism Business Improvement District commitment. The workplan suggests developing a revenue model timed around the TBID’s expiration approximately six years from now.
A minimum maintenance budget, or “reinvestment floor,” also received considerable support.
The proposal would establish a minimum annual city maintenance investment of approximately 2% of asset value, phased in over time. It received a 73% bridging score, with support from 85% of Democrats, 73% of Republicans and 82% of independents.
The proposal could ultimately be established through a City Council resolution. Change.org suggested examining similar policies in other communities, including provisions allowing the requirement to be temporarily suspended during significant economic downturns.
Several other potential taxes, fees and financial strategies failed to reach Change.org’s 60% consensus threshold and were excluded from the proposed next steps.
Selling or entering long-term leases for genuinely dormant city property received a 53% bridging score. Revenue-positive annexation received 44%, as did an independent line-by-line budget audit when considered as a stand-alone proposal.
A full 1% sales tax, estimated to produce approximately $29 million annually, received 41%.
A fixed parks and maintenance fee of between $100 and $300 per property received 38%, while a property transfer tax of between 0.5% and 0.75%, estimated to generate between approximately $3.5 million and $5.25 million annually, received 37%.
A stormwater study accompanied by a dedicated drainage charge generating an estimated $2 million to $5 million annually received 35%. A time-limited general obligation bond, estimated in the proposal at approximately $247 annually on an $800,000 home, received 28%.
The least-supported of the major revenue proposals was a citywide maintenance-and-services Community Facilities District, estimated at approximately $500 to $700 annually for the median home. It received a 24% bridging score.
One proposal did cross the consensus threshold but was nevertheless held back. Tying residential approvals to commercial or employment milestones reached a 68% bridging score, but Change.org determined it was unlikely to be successful because of development risk and did not include it among the recommended actions.
The proposed workplan organizes the ideas according to how quickly they could potentially move forward.
The first priority centers on implementation support for the most immediately actionable policies, including publication of the city’s infrastructure priority list and road repaving schedule, the small-business retention strategy, public-private sponsorship opportunities and economic-development incentives.
The next group, proposed for another look within approximately three months, includes additional work on small-business retention, public-private partnerships and sponsorships, targeted economic-development incentives, dedicated maintenance funding for new Community Facilities Districts and reviewing the city’s development and permit fee structure.
A third group is proposed for reassessment in approximately six months and includes an inventory of underused land, the Facility Condition Assessment and public dashboard, the potential half-cent sales tax, long-term project cost projections, a minimum maintenance budget and the longer-term transient occupancy tax proposal.
Change.org described its potential future role as essentially serving as additional support for the city’s infrastructure and fiscal sustainability work rather than directing city policy or representing Folsom.
The organization offered to research what comparable cities have done, identify precedent ordinances, draft model policies and ordinance language, prepare supporting research and assist with coalition building where appropriate.
The recommendations were prioritized using three factors: whether the city has the authority to implement the proposal itself, how quickly it could be implemented and how significant its potential impact would be on Folsom’s financial sustainability and infrastructure condition. Proposals already underway or requiring only administrative action generally ranked ahead of those requiring studies, significant expenditures or voter approval.
Whitemyer said Change.org’s willingness to continue providing that assistance is particularly useful as the city works within its existing staffing and resource constraints.
“Elijah and his team have indicated they would like to continue to help us with this effort,” Whitemyer said.
He asked council members for direction on two questions: whether staff should continue working with Change.org to turn the recommendations into more practical implementation steps and whether the organization should be permitted to publicly list Folsom among the cities it has worked with.
Council members gave staff the go-ahead on both. That direction moves the initiative into a new phase, although it does not mean the council has adopted the 14 consensus policies or committed city funding to them. The workplan remains just that — a proposed path forward.
Tuesday’s presentation did not, by itself, authorize implementation of all of the individual policies outlined in the report. City staff noted that any recommendations ultimately pursued would depend on council direction, consistency with city priorities and available funding. Any item requiring additional money would return to the City Council for consideration.
There was no direct cost to Folsom for participating in the Change.org civic dialogue process, according to the staff report. Change.org has also offered to continue assisting with workplan implementation projects at no charge to the city. Actual financial impacts would depend on which recommendations, if any, the council ultimately chooses to pursue.
The council’s agreement to let Change.org identify Folsom as a participating community also closes an issue that dated to the beginning of the partnership.
When the City Council initially agreed to participate, it requested that Folsom’s name not be used in Change.org marketing or promotional materials without prior approval and until the city had completed the process and was satisfied with the outcome.
Whitemyer reminded the council Tuesday that the restriction had been put in place in part because members wanted to see the organization’s finished work before allowing Folsom’s participation to be promoted.
With the civic dialogue complete, city staff reported it was satisfied with the results and recommended granting that authorization. The council agreed, allowing Change.org to reference its work with Folsom going forward.
Taken together, the survey, civic dialogue and council discussion provide the city with a detailed collection of opinions on everything from the daily frustrations of traffic and street repairs to the much larger questions of development, taxes and how Folsom pays to maintain its infrastructure over decades.
The residents who participated did not produce a single vision for Folsom’s future, and the process did not suggest agreement on every path forward. The strongest areas of consensus instead centered on a series of practical themes: maintain existing infrastructure, address traffic, make city priorities and project schedules easier for residents to see, better account for long-term costs and ensure future growth comes with a plan to pay for the services and infrastructure it requires.
With the council’s direction Tuesday, city staff and Change.org will now continue working on how those survey findings can be translated into specific proposals for future consideration.
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