City Name Advisory Committee Announces Major Steps Forward in Community Survey Effort
15 March 2026
The effort to gather broad public input on whether the newly incorporated city should consider a name change -- and if so, what the community would like the city council to consider as alternatives -- took two significant steps forward this week. There are several recent positive developments.
Advisory Committee Resolution
The Ogden Valley City Council recently adopted a resolution establishing a formal process for creating advisory committees to provide resident‑driven input on a variety of specific issues. The city name review—already the subject of substantial community interest and volunteer work—was selected as the first committee to launch under the new framework.
Peggy Dooling-Baker was appointed as the committee’s sponsor and co-chair, a role that includes coordinating with city leadership and ensuring the group’s work is aligned with council expectations. The volunteer co-chairs are Edith Songer and Victoria Malmborg.
Partnership with Weber State University Brings Independent Expertise
In a second major development, the Advisory Committee has entered into a collaboration with faculty and students from Weber State University to design and administer community surveys.
Committee members described the partnership as transformative. The WSU team—led by WSU Student Body President Mia Foster and political science professor Dr. Gary Johnson—will use the Qualtrics platform to develop, distribute, and analyze the surveys.
Qualtrics is a cloud-based survey and analytics tool widely used by universities, governments, and major brands for everything from simple questionnaires to advanced research. Victoria Malmborg stated, “Access to Qualtrics and the experienced WSU team is a game changer.”
Committee representatives emphasized the benefits of the collaboration:
“We’ve been using Google Sheets and other tools we had available, because we didn’t have the resources or expertise to license more sophisticated analytic systems,” said volunteer co-chair Edith Songer. “The Weber State partnership gives us access to talent and technology that will make our work truly professional quality. We also appreciate the guidance from Mia Foster, who is experienced with the Qualtrics survey, and Dr. Johnson, who is in expert in local government issues.”
Two‑Phase Survey Process Planned
The Advisory Committee and WSU team will conduct two rounds of surveys:
Next Steps: Postcard Outreach and Community Participation
To ensure every resident has access to the survey, the committee plans to mail a postcard to all valley addresses with instructions on how to participate. Fundraising is underway to cover printing, postage, and other project needs. For further information or to donate, contact volunteer chairs at [email protected] or [email protected].
The advisory committee continues to meet weekly on Wednesday evenings, 7:00 p.m., at the Ogden Valley Branch Library. There will be no meeting on March 18. All residents are welcome to attend and participate in the ongoing work.
The effort to gather broad public input on whether the newly incorporated city should consider a name change -- and if so, what the community would like the city council to consider as alternatives -- took two significant steps forward this week. There are several recent positive developments.
Advisory Committee Resolution
The Ogden Valley City Council recently adopted a resolution establishing a formal process for creating advisory committees to provide resident‑driven input on a variety of specific issues. The city name review—already the subject of substantial community interest and volunteer work—was selected as the first committee to launch under the new framework.
Peggy Dooling-Baker was appointed as the committee’s sponsor and co-chair, a role that includes coordinating with city leadership and ensuring the group’s work is aligned with council expectations. The volunteer co-chairs are Edith Songer and Victoria Malmborg.
Partnership with Weber State University Brings Independent Expertise
In a second major development, the Advisory Committee has entered into a collaboration with faculty and students from Weber State University to design and administer community surveys.
Committee members described the partnership as transformative. The WSU team—led by WSU Student Body President Mia Foster and political science professor Dr. Gary Johnson—will use the Qualtrics platform to develop, distribute, and analyze the surveys.
Qualtrics is a cloud-based survey and analytics tool widely used by universities, governments, and major brands for everything from simple questionnaires to advanced research. Victoria Malmborg stated, “Access to Qualtrics and the experienced WSU team is a game changer.”
Committee representatives emphasized the benefits of the collaboration:
- It brings in an independent, outside research team to ensure neutrality in survey design and data collection.
- It provides access to state‑of‑the‑art survey tools and professional‑grade analytics.
- It expands outreach capacity beyond what volunteers could achieve on their own, helping ensure the final dataset is broad, inclusive, and representative of the entire city.
“We’ve been using Google Sheets and other tools we had available, because we didn’t have the resources or expertise to license more sophisticated analytic systems,” said volunteer co-chair Edith Songer. “The Weber State partnership gives us access to talent and technology that will make our work truly professional quality. We also appreciate the guidance from Mia Foster, who is experienced with the Qualtrics survey, and Dr. Johnson, who is in expert in local government issues.”
Two‑Phase Survey Process Planned
The Advisory Committee and WSU team will conduct two rounds of surveys:
- Survey One: Broad community feedback on whether residents prefer to retain the current name and to solicit other options.
- Survey Two: A follow‑up survey soliciting community preferences among a options advanced by the community.
Next Steps: Postcard Outreach and Community Participation
To ensure every resident has access to the survey, the committee plans to mail a postcard to all valley addresses with instructions on how to participate. Fundraising is underway to cover printing, postage, and other project needs. For further information or to donate, contact volunteer chairs at [email protected] or [email protected].
The advisory committee continues to meet weekly on Wednesday evenings, 7:00 p.m., at the Ogden Valley Branch Library. There will be no meeting on March 18. All residents are welcome to attend and participate in the ongoing work.
