The DeKalb City Council unanimously approved a resolution to conduct a $7,000 phone survey concerning DeKalb growth issues.

The primary concern between aldermen was the input the survey would receive from NIU students. While campus numbers wouldn’t be included within the survey, students living off campus in apartments or townhouses could be among the 400-person survey.

Third Ward Alderman Steve Kapitan said his concern regarded “over-representation” and that if a good number of students participated in this survey, a skewed result could occur.

Kapitan’s arguments included the fact that most students don’t have a good grasp of how the city has progressed over the past years, and therefore, don’t have a concrete opinion regarding the significant growth the city recently has witnessed.

“I’d be very concerned [about the results] because students have a different time frame and a different timeline [than long-term DeKalb residents],” Kapitan said.

Chad Kniss, of the NIU Public Opinion Lab, said there is no question within the survey asking who is a student and who is not. However, he emphasized that they would be able to determine who likely is a student by including a question asking how long a person has been a resident of DeKalb.

“I think a student bias is unlikely to happen,” Kniss said.

Kniss added that a similar survey was given in Lawrence, Kan., and University of Kansas students didn’t cause any conflicts or biases.

“We’re trying to make [the survey] simple, straightforward and one that gets the answers to what we want to know,” said Mayor Greg Sparrow in response to aldermen concerns that questions in the survey needed to be tweaked.

Also at the meeting, Director of MainStreet/DeKalb Inc. Heather Fosburgh presented to the council the success of the project thus far, including goals for next year.

She said despite two stores closing within the past year, DeKalb’s downtown district’s two new openings have not offset, but increased the vitality of the town.

With an additional $50,000 for architectural improvements and increasing foot traffic throughout the downtown district, Fosburgh said plans so far this year have been extremely successful.

She outlined goals for the future, most importantly a relationship with city and community development departments to complete the streetscaping plan.

Fosburgh said smaller, intangible goals would be to develop increased relationships with downtown merchants and businesses. She added that increased fundraising efforts are important to ease the city’s financial burden in funding this project.

The city council will bring back the MainStreet consideration to fund the $25,000 project at a later date.

First Ward Alderman Andy Small encouraged students to attend the Greek Row/First Ward cleanup at 10 a.m. this Saturday to clean up litter compiled throughout the winter. Participants are asked to meet at the Campus Cinemas parking lot, 1015 Blackhawk Road. He added that community service groups also are welcome to come and would receive community service hours for participating in this project.