 City administrator Sue McLaughlin shared with the city council her
thoughts on how to go about accomplishing this.Recently the city
received a refund from Illinois American Water for overcharges it
had incurred in the past. The refund came to $13,000.
McLaughlin said this was money the city had not counted on
getting and had not included in the budget. She felt that using it
to go ahead with strategic plan development would be a good use of
the funds.
Later in the meeting she would be asked if doing this would take
the entire $13,000, and she clarified that it would not. She said
the work could be done by a professional for $2,000 to $3,000.
McLaughlin introduced her topic by saying that the subject had
come to the forefront for several reasons. She said that "there had
been quite a bit of discussion, whether it was at budget time or
with sewer billing or other occasions, about the future operation of
city departments."
She said this had led to discussions between herself and Mayor
Keith Snyder about the city having a strategic plan that would set
goals for the future. She said Snyder had asked her to prepare a
request for proposal to seek out a professional to help the city
create a document.
She said a strategic plan would help the city identify issues,
set goals and actions for staff, and give the aldermen an idea of
the direction of the community and where they want it to go. She
added that as aldermen, this would be one of the best things they
could do, to talk about setting policy for staff and following the
actions of the policy.
She said the actual work session for the aldermen would probably
be a day and a half. She suggested it could begin on a Friday
afternoon and evening, and go into an all-day session on Saturday.
The final product would develop a community vision with core
values; outline specific, measurable goals with a clear timeline and
action plan, and a clear way of communicating those goals and
outcomes; identify and suggest a plan for implementation and
follow-up; provide city departments and elected officials with a
hard copy; and also create a digital version to be shared with the
community.
Bruce Carmitchel asked if this would be a task where McLaughlin
could be the mediator and professional creating the plan. McLaughlin
said that would be one of the worst things the city could do. She
explained that it would not be good to have the administrator who is
supposed to enforce the plan to be the one to write it.
Tom O'Donohue said he was all in favor of doing this.
Melody Anderson added that this is a subject the council has
lamented over the years, that they needed something like this, but
didn't have the time to do it because they were so weighed down with
the day-to-day activities.
She told the council that now is the time to follow through.
McLaughlin said what she was proposing was a bare-bones activity.
She noted some will spend three days in a nice retreat doing this,
and that is certainly not what she had in mind. She said it would be
good to find a free location away from City Hall for the meetings,
and comments were made that such locations could be found in
Lincoln. The park district was mentioned specifically.
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Snyder commented on this, saying: "In the past six months the
council has moved some big rocks. There are still rocks to move.
There are big things on the horizon, and it behooves us to get our
collective minds in order. It would probably be good to have someone
help us work through the process of saying, this is the way we
should go."
Marty Neitzel spoke up and said she was sick and tired of
planning. She commented: "Our people need to see something done. We
have been planning and planning and planning." She concluded by
saying, "We have nothing done to show our people we are working at
it."
Anderson commented that this is exactly why the city needs a
strategic plan. She said: "The city plans and plans but has no way
of measuring or saying we can't do that project, because these are
the ones we said are important. We tackle things as they come up.
We've got to get away from that."
Neitzel said, then maybe the city should just plan one thing at a
time, then do it.
But Anderson said what happens is, they end up with several
things spread out all over and that doesn't work. "We need to have
something that works together to get us where we want to be. The
problem is we don't know where we want to be yet," she said.
Neitzel commented: "The people of Lincoln want a decent road they
can drive in their car."
McLaughlin commented: "What about housing? What about
schools? What about downtown? What about education? What about
finance? These are all things that need to be discussed and
prioritized."
Snyder also noted that in December the city had approved a
five-year capital improvement plan for infrastructure.
He commented: "We're trying to follow the old cowboy rule of
‘ready, aim, fire.' We can do 'fire, ready, aim'; or 'fire, aim,
ready' and get some results."
Neitzel brought this part of the discussion to an end by saying,
if this will help, then she's all for it.
Jeff Hoinacki said he wanted to get the discussion back on track.
He asked how the request for proposal would be worded. Would it
include a "not to exceed" price?
McLaughlin said that a "not to exceed" would be the way to go.
Carmitchel asked if the professional would be the facilitator or
the creator of the document.
McLaughlin said they would do both.
As the discussion wound down, McLaughlin said she would send out
copies of the draft request for review on Wednesday so the city can
keep moving forward on this project.
[By NILA SMITH]
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