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 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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