By RYAN CHRISTNER

rchristner@dailynews.net

Residents within the city limits of Ellis should expect a friendly visit from Fort Hays State University students next week as they distribute a survey aimed at determining public attitudes toward local police and gauging citizens' emergency preparedness.

The City of Ellis Law Enforcement Needs Assessment Survey is sponsored by the Ellis Police Department and is being conducted as a project of the FHSU sociology program.

Kate McGonigal, assistant professor of sociology, and 12 students from her class and that of leadership studies instructor Christie Brungardt will take to the streets beginning Monday. They hope to reach one-third of city population, or about 300 households.

McGonigal said the survey has been in the works for about a year, after having been contacted by Ellis Police Chief Randy Taylor, and she'd like to administer another in three years to obtain more accurate results.

"When I started here a year and a half ago, in June (2008)," Taylor said, "I had a desire to try to get an overall viewpoint from the community (about) its wants, needs and desires."

The packets given to residents will include the survey, a cover letter with instructions and a pre-paid envelope in which the survey should be mailed when it is completed.

If no one is home, a packet will be hung on the door in bags donated by Dillon's on Vine Street.

Officers employed with the Ellis Police Department, as well as members of their immediate family, will be exempted from participating in the survey.

McGonigal and her students will be in Ellis through Nov. 9. They will carry official FHSU identification and wear school apparel.

As participant anonymity is one of her principal goals, McGonigal said, each survey packet will include identical envelopes that are indistinguishable from one another.

"I have taken very strong measures to strictly protect confidentiality," she said. "There will be no linkage at all from the mail to the street address."

Neither McGonigal nor her helpers will receive compensation for their efforts. In fact, for the students, their only reward is avoiding the alternative assignment of writing a research paper.

Once the surveys are collected, McGonigal plans to report her findings to the Ellis City Commission sometime in the spring.

Depending on the results, Taylor said, it is possible department policies and procedures could be modified, as understanding what the public sees as the department's strengths and weaknesses will give a clearer picture of where to appropriately concentrate resources.

"Certainly, if we find out that there's a major concern that I'm not addressing, then we'll change that," he said.