Washington City Council plans for the future | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Washington City Council held a marathon session Monday night (12-12-11), devoted mostly to strategic planning. After honoring out-going councilman Gil Davis, the mayor was re-installed, having been elected without opposition and the remainder of the council was reinstalled. Richard Brooks returned to the council after a term in hiatus. The Council then recessed to the Civic Center where it spent most of the remainder of the evening planning its immediate, short-term and long-term priorities.

    The process used was the traditional brainstorming of a list of goals and objectives and then classifying them into three categories--"economy," "finances" and "community improvement." Within each category three short-terms goals were/will be identified, along with three long-term and three immediate. You can review the end results by clicking here to download the matrix. An additional "to do list" was generated for the staff's immediate attention. It is referred to in the videos as the "bucket list."

    The idea is that once the council has identified the priorities the staff/manager will develop the strategies for accomplishing those objectives. Then the success in accomplishing the objectives will form the basis for management's evaluation. The priorities were not weighted. Some will evolve over time while others are expected to be completed within the prescribed time frame.

    It was pretty obvious that the council members brought items to the table that had been suggested by constituents. There was little disagreement among the five councilmen although that may change once the budget is factored into the plan.

    Commentary

    You can watch the videos of the process below (although the videos are dated 12-13-11 when they were downloaded, they were all recorded Monday night.) By way of commentary, you will note that other than not weighting each item against other items, the obvious character of the session could only be labeled as "expansive." The end result was to seek to "do" many things. Almost no attention was given to constricting the list of things traditionally done, just as they chose not to seek to determine which items are most important. Experience has shown that this tends to lead to a process of "success" being judged by how much is done--i.e., doing more things--rather than how well fewer things are done. But if that sounds like a criticism on our part, it is not. From our observation, other units of local government in the county would do well to emulate the Washington council's approach. (County and school board are you listening?) But our bias in times of shrinking resources is toward doing fewer things better rather than trying to do so many things. Most successful government enterprises now days are becoming more proficient in management retrenchment rather than expansiveness. Moreover, little attention was given to how to quantifiably measure progress or achievement, but perhaps that will come later. But if you listen carefully to the videos you discern a heavy emphasis on getting the deficit spending under control and cutting electric rates as two goals that seemed to be the consensus of the group as being most important. Both of those items are consistent with the recent election campaign and we commend the council for that responsiveness to the people.

    The first video begins with a couple of grant/project preliminary approvals for the recently sold Old City Hall and the old County Health Department building. After some discussion of other items they get into the Priority Setting session. In the first video you hear a review of the process to be used by the City Manager Josh Kay.



    The second video begins the brainstorming. Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Robertson identifies eliminating the deficit spending as the first item put on the table. Transferring the 911 communications center is then listed. Reducing/eliminating the transfer from the Electric Fund to the General Fund is listed. Load management and consumer education are added. Assessing overtime is also identified and classified as "organizational restructuring."



    The third video includes discussions of overtime, travel, the city's identity, and utility rates:



    The fourth video continued the discussion of the utility rates and identified drainage, particularly related to Jack's Creek and in other areas, condition of certain streets, partnership with DOT, outsourcing, staffing patterns, communications with the public, and mitigating racial divisions within the city.



    The fifth video continues the discussion of race relations and identified community unity, improving the appearance of the city, morale including council/employee relations, staff follow-up on ideas, initiatives and policies and goals. There was a discussion of the needs of the greater downtown area.



    Video #6 begins with a discussion of Festival Park and waterfront facilities management, then moves on to developing a "service-oriented culture," 15th Street widening, the Transportation Improvement Plan including the U. S. 17 By-pass signage and how to attract business off the By-pass, developing the travel industry and recreation were identified, as was attracting and retaining young people.



    The 7th video identified a need for a "one stop" concept of citizens interacting with City departments and functions to make "business-friendly strategies." The idea of revising the Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction area, and inspections. Educating the various boards, committee's and groups involved in municipal functions about their roles, responsibilities and the recruitment of members of such groups and the applicable policies related to such groups was discussed. The need to promote job creation and development, including economic development partnerships was listed. Aggressive code enforcement of housing standards, including condemnation, was also discussed. The need for effective grantmanship was identified.



    The 8th video focused on a continuation of grant seeking, re-examining the police facilities, facilities in general (Master Plan), renovating/replacing City Hall, and an electric rate stabilization fund are included.



    The 9th video opens with the Manager reviewing what his perceptions are. This led into a discussion of the airport. It becomes obvious the airport is a "hot button issue." Library services were brought up as was water and sewer capacity, including "River Road growth" and the needs of Chocowinity for sewer capacity. Lack of minorities in supervisory positions was identified as a problem led to identifying "diversity" as a priority.



    The final two videos focused on "tacking" each of the items on the list into one of the three categories of "economy, finance and community improvement." The results of this process can be seen in the matrix at this link.