SIDNEY — The Sidney Police Department wants your feedback to better understand how “to provide excellent service.”

Beginning May 30, the department will be opening-up an anonymous Citizen’s Attitude Survey to obtain the public’s perception of the city, its police officers and department.

“What we really want is honest feedback from citizens, because that is the only way we can improve — or even if we are doing a good job, understand what we are doing well to continue that habit,” said Sidney Police Chief Will Balling.

Survey questions will cover a variety of areas including neighborhoods, police officers, demographics, the police department and the community’s thoughts about heroin. The survey will be available through links on social media, the city’s website, in hard copy and also via phone. It may take about 15 minutes to complete.

“It’s a way to figure out what exactly what the community wants from the Sidney Police Department. It’s to figure out what the department can do to improve itself, because the department’s motto is ‘to provide excellent service,’” said the chief’s summer intern Amber Balling. “They want to go above and beyond what is expected of them as police officers.”

This summer, Amber will be hitting Sidney streets and visiting different organizations in town, such as The Great Sidney Farmer’s Market and the Sidney Kiwanis Club, to gather people’s thoughts.

“It covers a wide variety of things, such as in your specific neighborhood, how do you feel that crime has correlated with your quality of living. Do you think crime in your area has gone up or down, or stayed the same — so police officers maybe know where to focus their energy,” Amber said. “And then it also talks specifically about the police officers themselves. Do you think as though they are respectful? Do you feel as though they generally care about you? It focuses on how they are doing preventing crime and other aspects of that. And it even has a couple of questions of what you think what needs to be worked on in Sidney.”

To develop the survey, she has been working with Professor Deborah Wilson, criminal justice department head at the University of Louisville. Wilson has worked with the Louisville Police Department for over 20 years to produce their survey.

Amber said the police chief cares a lot about not only his officers, but also the citizens of Sidney and has wanted to conduct a community survey for a long time, but now has the means to do so with the help of an intern.

Will Balling said lots of police departments across the country issue this type of survey, but this will be the first time, he knows of, that Sidney will publish one.

“This is for the betterment for the place where we live. They don’t have to put down a name … they can mail it in, they can call it in, they can drop it off. We just want the information,” Will Balling said. “We really want to know what our citizens think, so we want the honest truth — good and bad.”

The police chief encourages residents to complete the survey. He also wants people to know this is a real survey, and a local survey created in Sidney, not by some information collection service from across the county.

“This is about the citizens opinion and we really care about what they have to say,” Will Balling said.

Survey responses are expected to be published on the city’s website by the end of the summer, the chief said.

The survey will be available on the city’s website at http://www.sidneyoh.com/police/police-citizen-survey-sidney-ohio.asp.

Also, links to the survey will be available on the city’s Twitter and Facebook pages. A hard copy of the survey can be obtained at the Senior Center of Sidney-Shelby County, the Sidney-Shelby County YMCA and at Amos Memorial Public Library. People can also call to complete the survey at 937-498-8781.