SRQ Daily Columnist Kevin Cooper is the vice president for Public Policy and Sarasota Tomorrow Initiatives for The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce

For years, Sarasota County and its municipalities have been recognized for a number of reasons by a broad array of notable sources.  CNN/Money Magazine has named the City of Sarasota as America’s Best Small City and one of America’s Best Places to Retire.  Siesta Beach was named the number-one beach in the nation by Dr. Stephen Leatherman, a/k/a Dr. Beach, America’s foremost beach expert.  Venice was named by Forbes Magazine as one of the top 25 Places to Retire.  Livability.com, a Journal Communications company, named Sarasota as a Top Spring Break Destination for Families.  USA Today named Sarasota as one of the Great Waterfronts to Visit Across North America.  And, most recently, Google named the City of Sarasota as Florida’s Top E-City.  

While the recognitions and awards should certainly serve as a point of pride for residents, public employees and elected officials, they don’t necessarily represent how the community sees or feels about itself.

Sarasota County has an annual citizen survey designed, in part, to inform the County as to how the community sees and feels about itself.  The problem is that surveys of this nature are often anchored largely in the subjectivity of opinion and fail to draw upon factual and objective measures of the area’s performance on the issues in question.

Enter into this equation the local entity SCOPE, which stands for Sarasota County Openly Plans for Excellence. SCOPE manages programs “connecting and inspiring citizens to create a better community.” Part of this work is to bring factual information and people together. Too often, members of the community either praise or berate public staff, public officials and each other, based on wholly subjective measures. 

Thankfully, there is a tool that can be used to ground our discussions with relevant and objective data. First published in 2002, the “SCOPE Community Report Card” has been updated several times—most recently in 2014. This array of information profiling our community is divided in key sections with titles including Learning, Economics, Health, Civic Participation and the Natural Environment. Each “chapter” of this extensive report includes data on 12-15 indicators, and the entire 200-plus page document can be found at www.Scopexcel.org.

To compare our area to others, we can look at the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation-produced framework known as the Six Pillars.  The Pillars include metrics about: (1) talent supply and education, (2) innovation and economic development, (3) infrastructure and growth leadership, (4) business climate and competitiveness, (5) civic and governance systems, and (6) quality life and quality places.  The idea is that the Pillars were identified as the critical factors in determining the success of Florida’s future.

The Pillars themselves don’t necessarily eliminate the potential for subjective frustration.  Indeed, what’s quality to one isn’t quality to another and economic development takes many shapes.  The key is to find objective measures upon which to gauge status and progress.  The idea is that, for at any point in time, a citizen should be able to point to how Florida communities are performing in terms of the Six Pillars.  The Chamber Foundation’s Florida Scorecard does just that and it can be found at www.TheFloridaScorecard.com. 

Using tools such as SCOPE Community Report Card and the state Chamber Foundation’s Florida Scorecard will help harness the community’s fragmented viewpoints into a common and consistent conversation.  A scorecard, of course, isn’t intended to stifle opinion, but rather to ensure that opinion and fact are clearly delineated.  The likely foundation of a healthy community conversation is one that extends beyond the human nature of subjectivity and deals in the realm of what is and what isn’t. 

It has been noted that the Greek philosopher Thales once stated that the easiest thing to do is give advice.  When asked what was most difficult, he is quoted as having said, “to know thyself.”   

SRQ Daily Columnist Kevin Cooper is the vice president for Public Policy and Sarasota Tomorrow Initiatives for The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce