Lincoln 2020 – A clear vision of the future
Strategic Planning: Creating a vision and identifying Strengths and weaknesses

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[March 12, 2015]  LINCOLN - On Saturday morning, the city of Lincoln Strategic Plan workshop got off to a running start. The early part of the day involved creating a vision for the future and identifying the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) within the city of Lincoln.

In attendance for the meeting were aldermen Scott Cooper, Jeff Hoinacki, Kathy Horn, Todd Mourning, Marty Neitzel and Steve Parrott. Also on hand were Mayor Keith Snyder, city administrator Clay Johnson and city clerk Susan Gehlbach. Department heads on hand included Assistant Police Chief Paul Adams, Waste Treatment manager Tim Ferguson, Street Department superintendent Walt Landers, Building and Zoning Officer John Lebegue and Fire Chief Mark Miller.

Katie Davison of the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) at Northwestern Illinois University served as the moderator.

Cooper, Ferguson, Landers and Lebegue were new attendees on Saturday, so the morning began with those three introducing themselves and talking about why they do what they do for the city of Lincoln.

Davison opened the workday saying that she wanted the city to create a tool that would be used, and not a book that would gather dust setting on a shelf. She said that the goal of the day would be to come up with realistic, implementable ideas with timelines for completion. She said an important part of the process was to create “smart goals." She explained that such goals included brief but specific details, and set a date for their completion.

Steve Parrott asked how the chain of command worked on a strategic plan for a municipality, saying he knew the leader in a corporation was the executive director, so for the city who would be the executive director.

Davison said she believed that the city administrator would fill that position, but she explained that it was a three-prong approach. She said the council or aldermen, establish the vision for the city. The department heads and staff implement the goals. The city administrator needs to be the overseer. She said this was why it was important now to have aldermen and staff at the table for the workshop. She explained that the vision needs to be something that will work, and staff need to have input on that.

Davison noted that Michelle Bauer had been present on Friday night, but unable to attend on Saturday. She said Bauer had ideas and suggestions and had sent those to Davison in an email. Bauer had said that she wanted to see the city have a vision, and see everyone get behind that vision 100 percent. Davison said that was exactly what is needed in order for a strategic plan to be successful.

Before getting into the work of the day, Snyder recounted to some of the newer aldermen, how the city is paying for the Strategic Plan process. In June of 2013 Illinois American Water returned approximately $13,000 to the city. The refund was based on a billing error that had been corrected.

The aldermen voted to donate $5,000 to the Oasis Senior Center building fund after they lost their downtown location to fire. The balance, they set aside in the budget for the Strategic Plan. The city considered starting on the plan when Sue McLaughlin was the temporary city administrator. But after her resignation, the city decided to wait until a new permanent administrator was hired.
 


What is the Vision for the future?

To kick off the work of setting a vision, Davison reminded the aldermen of the questions she had presented to them on Friday night.
“Who are the city’s stakeholders?”
“If you were to leave Lincoln and not return for ten years, what would you like to have changed? What would you like to stay the same?”
“What makes you proud of Lincoln?”
“What concerns you most about the future of Lincoln?”

Davison drew the focus to question number two, “If you were to leave Lincoln and not return for ten years, what would you like to have changed? What would you like to stay the same?”

Neitzel was the first to answer saying she would want to see that the city has grown.

Horn said she would hope to see fewer empty buildings.

Mourning wanted the downtown to be a destination with atmosphere.

Miller hoped that the downtown would remain a traditional downtown.

Other comments included making the city appealing to the older and younger generations, seeing the citizens of the community actively involved and engaged.

Parrott spoke about the importance of raising the median income by growing industry and jobs.
Snyder said he had two words: Healthy and entrepreneurial.

Davison said the group wanted their vision statement to be concise. The group reviewed vision statements from other communities and discussed what they wanted.

Mourning came up with the phrase “The best small town in central Illinois." On the whole the group liked that as the starting point for a vision statement. Davison said the sentence could be the base, and that other wording could be added to it to reflect what other members had said.

The discussion moved on to “Who are the customers." Mourning pointed out that the city has two customer bases; internal and external. The internal customers are those whole live in the community, and pay taxes. The external customers are those who visit the community as tourists.

The question then became does the city cater to one set of customers more than the other. Johnson said that he did not believe the city should choose one base. He noted that the goal of city leaders should be “to offer the same high-quality service to everyone."

During these discussions, most everyone was participating, and thoughts about the city of Lincoln as it is now, came from all corners of the room.

It was discussed that Lincoln has a large number of seniors, and Davison asked, if that is what city leaders want. Did they want to grow the senior population?

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Neitzel had commented on this on Friday evening when the group was looking at the senior population. She said the numbers were saying that not only were seniors staying in the community for retirement, but she felt there were those who were “coming home” to retire.

The group on Saturday discussed this as a pro and a con. The goal for the future is to make Lincoln a place where young people will want to stay after college, but at the same time, aldermen don’t want the seniors to leave or be ignored. In the end, the hope of the city leaders is that the population will achieve a balance of young and older.

Davison then asked how the city was going to have that kind of balance.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Neitzel commented on the Young Professional Network, and it was soon added as one of the first items on the list of strengths in the city. The YPN is a faction of the Lincoln/Logan County Chamber of Commerce. The goal of the group is to engage young professionals between the ages of 25 and 40, countywide with the hopes of keeping them engaged in the community and strengthening their commitment to continue living and working here.

Other additions to the “strengths” list were the evolution of the Art and Balloon Festival. Davison was well aware of the balloon festival but wasn’t aware of the plans to expand the festival into four events.

The work of the Healthy Communities Partnership was also considered a strength, as was the creation of the Logan County Alliance.

The group also soon realized that strengths can also have their weaknesses. Davison pointed out that the city has a beautiful downtown area, and that is a strength. At the same time, there are weaknesses. The group considered the walk-ability of the community, the pitfalls of aging neighborhoods, and the need for beautification in some parts of town, all as weaknesses.
 


They also talked about one of the most prevalent weaknesses in the city, its aging infrastructure. Ferguson discussed the challenges of an antiquated sewer system, and also the projects and programs that are currently addressing some of those issues. Landers spoke about the streets and the needs in different parts of town.

The group also talked about the progress that has been made. For example, the reconstruction of Pulaski Street from Hamilton to LaDue has been a great accomplishment that the residents of that portion of the town have appreciated.

On the downside of the story, aldermen noted that while that particular part of town was happy, other parts were very unhappy. The aldermen concluded that while the city can only do so much at one time, there is so much to be done, that residents whose streets have not been fixed become disgruntled. They also talked about the capital improvement plan, a five-year plan to remedy many of the street issues in the city. Landers shared that the plan is being used, but at the same time it is under review right now by the Farnsworth Group.

Identifying it as a weakness, Parrott said there was a problem with segregation of school districts in Lincoln. He noted that there are four districts (Lincoln Community High School District, District 27 Elementary and Junior High, Chester-East Lincoln, and West Lincoln-Broadwell) within the city. Davison asked if consolidation was an option, and most of the aldermen agreed that it was not likely to happen.

Parrott also pointed out that at the high school there is a very low graduation rate, only 80 percent.

Looking at “weaknesses,” Mourning pointed out that Logan County is flat land, with very little scenic interest.

However, Davison also pointed out this could be a strength because it is an ideal location for the hot air balloons.

It was also mentioned as a strength, Lincoln College has the Creekside Environmental Center with hiking and walking paths and other interesting amenities.

Snyder pointed out that the new Lincoln Heritage Museum was a strength.

The group talked about the depot as a strength and Davison suggested that the city could investigate how to exploit the train station and railroad as another attraction in Lincoln.

All of this discussion took place within the first two hours of a six hour day Saturday. The group took one official break at around 11 a.m. and had a working lunch.

Topics that will be discussed in the next segment of coverage by LDN will include threats such as concerns for the Enterprise Zone and the local property tax rate. There will also be discussion on identifying “small victories” that help build constituent confidence in city government.

[Nila Smith]

Lincoln 2020 - A clear vision of the future

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