January 17-18, 2007
Kiffi Summa, Observer
On January 17th and 18th, I attended the City Council Retreat, to
observe for the LWV. These two five hour sessions were facilitated by
Don Salverda, who also did last year's retreat.
After dinner, Mayor Lansing took the first hour to go through his goals
for the "first 100 days". His list was comprised of about 15
far-ranging items, from exploring a council committee process, new
annexation agreements, updating the technology aspects of the council
chambers, to sewer/wastewater treatment capacity issues.
There was response and discussion with Administrator Al Roder, and
council members, as to the feasibility of this 100 day plan. All seemed
to think it was ambitious, but workable.
The facilitator then gave out a text/guidelines for the retreat,
focusing on Leadership, Planning, and Team Building. He led the group
through two rounds of "greatest challenges facing NF" and then a third
round of "expectations", hoping to expose some strong directions for
guiding planning. Most expectations centered around the idea of having
specific, realistic goals that were implemented in a timely fashion,
and communicated clearly to residents.
Next they went back to the 2006 Goals, approved at last year's retreat.
These were considered to still be valid, and of ongoing importance, but
amended to some extent by "Changes Expected to Impact the City in the
Next Five Years". Out of 16 statements, 6 were selected after much
discussion:
1. Increasing demands for delivered services combined with
uncertain and undefined revenue streams
2. The city's continued residential growth
3. Surrounding intergovernmental relationships
4. Effective implementation of the Economic development Plan
5. Imbalance of residential and commercial property taxes
6. Effect of MNDOT and County actions on transportation/road
improvements
More handouts: another important one was entitled "Issues and
Opportunities Facing the City(expressed as needs)". There was general
agreement that in both the "ongoing" and "highest priority "
categories these priorities had not changed significantly since last
year.
Ongoing: 1. Provide quality public services with available resources
2. Ensure City's financial stability
Highest Priority: 1. Implement Economic Development Plan and broaden
tax base
2. Retain character/identity of the Downtown
3. Improve communication and collaboration
with other public jurisdictions
4. Design and implement long term financial
plan, and common vision
5. Implement the City's comprehensive plans
6. Address the City's continued growth
*** Note how many of these priorities align directly with challenges
and changes.
The second evening included all the department heads, along with the
council, and again Mayor Lansing began with a 45 minute introduction,
telling the staff about his 100 Days Plan, and asking for their input.
City Administrator Roder commented on the "culture of the organization"
which was a perfect segue into the main topic for the second night:
Team Building and Leadership.
After some team building exercises, the facilitator went around the
room soliciting ideas of challenges, then expectations, lessons
learned, successes and problems.
All present voted on the City's overall performance rating, from 1-10,
and came up with an average of 7.5, "with a positive outlook".
Time was getting short, people were getting tired, but a leadership
section of the evening began; more handouts, more small table
discussions, and again more handouts.
That evening, I thought there was an excess of time spent on Team
building/Leadership issues, because it has seemed to me that this
council and staff have been working together rather well, without
obvious friction. What I did not know , that evening, was that earlier
in the week there was a major revision of the departmental structure at
City Hall.
With the announcement of Joel Walinski's new position as Public
Services Director, and the new structure which has both the Community
Development Department , as well as Engineering, "combined" under the
new Public Services designation, a major reorganization had occurred.
This reorganization was not discussed that night, and it remains to be
seen how it will function.
My thanks to City Administrator, Al Roder for welcoming the LWV to the
City Council Retreat.
Kiffi Summa
