By Karen Martin
The results are in for the community survey of Scarborough residents – the Town Council reviewed the results at a January 5 workshop. Now it’s time to check in with our businesses on their needs and priorities. Starting in February, SEDCO will be sending out a series of brief surveys to see what’s on the mind of local businesses.
We will distribute the surveys in two ways. First, we will use our online dataset of businesses and email the surveys. While we have over 1,400 businesses in our dataset, not all of them have emails, making a second method of collecting answers necessary. Businesses will be able to take a survey online at the SEDCO website.
Our intent is to ask two to three topical survey questions at a time. We understand that everyone is busy, so we want the surveys to be quick and easy to answer. There will be room to make comments, if someone wants to go into more depth on a topic.
The questions will be designed to identify the needs and priorities of the business community. Topics may include items such as:
1) What is the most pressing local issue in 2026?
2) What is the most pressing issue for your business in 2026?
3) Do you plan to expand in 2026?
4) Is housing availability a factor in finding or keeping employees?
The SEDCO Board will be working on the first questions to be asked over the next month so that we can be ready to deploy by the end of February. We will publish results on the SEDCO website (sedcomaine.com) after each survey.
The SEDCO Board will use the information to guide our activities over the next few years.
The best way to make sure you receive a survey is to review your information in our online business listings at https://sedcomaine.com/business-directory/.
If you would like to suggest questions for the survey, contact Karen Martin, SEDCO Executive Director at kmartin@sedcomaine.com.
If you would like to read more about the Townwide Community Survey, click here.
Keep tuned to find out what’s on the minds of our business community.
Karen Martin is Executive Director of Scarborough Economic Development Corporation (SEDCO).
