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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 01-08 SpecialMeridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 The special meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 5:40 P.M. on Tuesday, January 8, 2002, by Mayor Robert Corrie. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Keith Bird, Bill Nary, Cherie McCandless, and Tammy de Weerd. Others Present: Gary Smith, Mike Worley, Bill Nichols, Stacy Kilchenmann, and Dave Bowers. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Tammy de Weerd X Bill Nary X Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird X Mayor Robert Corrie Item 3. Presentation by Mr. John Luthy of Strategic Planning, Goals, and Objectives for the City of Meridian: Corrie: We will be discussing strategic planning and goals and objections to the City of Meridian with John Luthy. Luthy: Thank you Mayor. Let me begin by noting that the agenda memo, that I handed out to you, basically the first thing I’d like to do is part my agenda just very quickly as I did last time to give you a very quick status report. That is of which also included in the memorandum. Seven out of ten departments have completed the planning work; we’re pretty much done. Now it’s just polishing over the weeks ahead, but basically all their sections are completed. The other three departments have one section each to do, so they are closing in on it quickly. Still generally good cooperation, quick collaboration and certainly commitments, and so I think we should be able to get her knocked out by mid January. I’m hoping for the 11th that’s why I’m still kind of a shoulder behind them pretty hard, so I think with things with plenty of polished time. Where we really need to turn our attention now is I mentioned, as I’ve talked to some of you individually as I’ve been meeting with you independently is to begin the city wide roll, we really need to now start looking at what the city (inaudible) is for city government, with the vision of the city from the mayor and city council is, and what the operating values are that you want to identify. Most of that we will do in our one day planning session, I think that we can get that scheduled tonight that will also cover our agenda, I was going to see if we could look over one of calendars and get that scheduled we should be able to get that finished. The other key part, which I mentioned it in the last meeting, is to identify the major challenge areas that the mayor and city council believe that the city is facing. Once those are identified then we will do that, hopefully a little bit before that planning session, then during that session, that full day meeting, we really be drilling down on those and defining those and being able to write those. So then the front part of your plan you will have a section that has the major challenge areas and that’s one of the things that most of you want to publicize and saying these are the major things that this city is facing from challenges. Here are the goals associated with those challenges and here are some of the general Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 2 strategies we plan to take associated with those challenges. Again most of that work will be done probably in the afternoon of that planning, I want to call it a retreat, but that planning session, but I certainly would like some of that work be done ahead of time, beginning this evening. So, that’s kind of where we are in terms of the status, I think we are moving pretty well. Let me go over if I could and just quickly move forward cause we are going to run out of time. The schedule for the next several weeks are, this is certainly tentative, this is kind of what I have penciled out. To have all the departments plans that come from the operating departments complete by the 15th with my target now being the 11th which is this coming Friday. Hopefully today we will have the full day planning session for the council and the mayor and the directors scheduled by sometime late January. I’d love to have it in January if we can squeeze it in. I guess we will have to look at our calendars to see if that’ll work for us. Then during this time prior to that and then during that session to actually identify by the end of January the major challenge areas that you feel as with the directors and yourselves feel are the major challenge areas that this city is facing. Put those in priority order and then basically task the directors and myself and put it all into format and feed it back to you for editing and review, which we will do a lot of the off line work, but you are the ones that have to say, these are the things were putting on the wall as our major challenges that this community is facing. So hopefully that can be done during that planning session. If we can do some of that work off line before that session we will be able to fly through that in one day. Most groups take two days to do this, we are trying to squeeze it down into one day plus some short planning sessions like this one. So hopefully we can do some work offline and Ill be feeding you some examples of stuff tonight hopefully that will help and then with some other memos that will be out to you early next week. I talked to Anita and she and I will be meeting later in the week. Probably six weeks I asked that we can get an editing team, and there was a team that takes all this raw information to be compiled and puts into a nice format. I’ll help format it but we figure out tabs and binders and all that existing stuff so we are going to meet on that in the next few days. We have had several people that have volunteered for that but we need to pull that back together and we will do that within the next week. I hope we can continue having individual meetings with the mayor and the city council. That’s something I’d like to do and haven’t had one with the attorney yet, so I’d like to schedule some time if that’s okay. I’ll try to give you a call Bill and see if we can schedule some time to do that. Nichols: Sure Luthy: That would work. So I will do that. I would hope that once we have the planning off site one day. On (inaudible) planning session, within a week after that we can have the major challenge areas, the citywide mission, the vision, the operating values and the goals of the city drafted for your review and it will be a quick turn around. My belief is we can do that within one week. So that’s the plan by the first week of February to have that back to you, and so you can look at it and we can maybe have some short sessions on it. I’ll leave that up to you all if we still need another half day or something but if we can get it done in short sessions then what the heck. I call it the big book and once we get the big book all compiled all the department plans in it plus the role up plan then its coming Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 3 together. It’s going to end up being 150 pages, based on what the works the departments have done and the work that we will do together. So it’s going to be a pretty good sized book, so by the second week of February we should now if we will need another planning session to polish and refine and do whatever it is we need to do. Also Stacy and I talked in brief, but Mayor I think that Stacy you and I and whomever else you would like to include, probably should begin talking in early February about the budget tie in. Stacy has mentioned to some of you on the council already. Stacy and I agree with her doesn’t want to go back and change the budget format she has already created, but just pick out what kind of attachments to that we can use that ties into the strategic planning and so that we have measurability. So that there at accountability with these budgets. So we will start looking at that and probably talk about that a little bit in our planning session in late January. I would believe that we could complete and have the complete plan in one volume ready to hand out, would it be still editing or polishing but ready to read by the third week of February. Corrie: I don’t see any reason why we can’t do that. Luthy: We can probably do it sooner if we really wanted to, but I’ve been told that the budget process starts picking up a little bit of steam in February so I think we need to have it pretty much together. The department budgets will be together, that’s the ones that you need to be concerned about also in terms of tying things together so we should be in pretty good shape. The question was brought up last time, and when we talked a little bit about are we going to tie in city community wide activities. I think we should still talk about that and how we might want to do that, we can talk about some variations of that on our meeting in December. What I probably do is suggest you think about that a little bit cause there is so many different ways to do it and then when we will talk about it in our planning get together toward the end of the month, on how we might want to do that. Now I mentioned how there are several ways it’s been done in the past, so we can certainly do that. To me I think that’s what we can pull together in January and February should be able to pull it together nicely. We’ll have a great time. Corrie: Okay John in our staff meeting today, our department heads were concerned about tie-ins between what the council and the mayor has as far as goals and visions and what the department heads know. This one will be the time will be on that (inaudible). Luthy: Exactly, to be frank I have never seen a lack of tie in. Anywhere I have ever been, on any level. Usually you all are in pretty much in touch with what the departments want to do, I think what it comes down to is when you select the major goal areas or activity, excuse me the challenges. You might want to showcase different challenges that maybe one of the department directors might want to and that’s obviously going to be a negotiation I suppose. If they feel really strongly about that this is a major challenge area and they are saying nah it’s not as major. That’s what that day is all I about I suppose. Main thing is get them all up on the wall and then decide on where to put them. Or if, you know. So, that one day is going to be a full, full day. The difficult with one day session Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 4 is it usually takes about an hour to kind of spiral down into the work, and of course everybody starts getting tired around two thirty or three, three thirty so we are going have some compressed time to try to get our work done but that’s why I’d like to get some of this work done at this time if we can at least of your thoughts and some notes made so we can buzz right through. The departments are going to be pretty much jammed up I think cause they have been working on this for six or eight weeks so they are going to be on a ramp. So I think it’s going to important for the council to be also pretty, you know to have at least thought about the major challenges and I’m going to give you a bunch of stuff tonight to kind of help you prepare, and I’ll be happy to meet with you individually and whatever we can do to try and get our energy. Okay, any other questions? Bird: John I got one. When did you want us to fax or email our goals and stuff to be organized? Do you want us to wait and bring that forward when we have this all day session? Luthy: I’d love to see them, I’d love to compile them. I think it’s certainly fair enough to kind of get them out there a little bit. If you want to hold them that’s okay too. You know I think. Bird: Which would work the best? Luthy: You know I’ve seen it done both ways and I don’t think there is a best, it all depends on if we can do what I hope, and most groups do, is we get the mission the vision operating values done in the morning and then the whole afternoon will be spent on goals and major challenge areas. The main thing I would rather see, well both goals and challenge areas, those are areas that you almost need to spend some time on offline in the next two or three weeks because you really do need to kind of rub your chins a little bit and think about what are the major challenges and what we are going to talk about tonight is the category of those challenges. Once you get the juices flowing it might not take a lot of time to come up with the ones that you think are the most critical and then we will have to articulate them after that session so that we read the way they want them to read. I would just assume ahead of time and have them in a file, my speed up the process. I think the worst thing to do is walk in cold, then try to jump start the process, I think that always tends to burn them out in about two hours and then it’s lunch time. That’s kind of how group things work and I certainly would like to have a lot of thinking done ahead of time, even if we had another short session that’s all we focus on is just goals for an hour, I think we would get a lot done. The departments on the average have had all their goals figured out within an hour. Cause they know what they are, its just by articulating them is I think is the challenge, so I don’t think that it’s going to take you very long. (inaudible) might take a little longer but, other questions? All right, real quickly I’d like to review something we talked about and I’ll stand up just real quickly if I may. I’d like to talk about these issues and challenges, as you know every department has been asked to identify the issues and challenges that they face. Remember, and this is part of the work you’ll do to, is those issues and challenges, I’m just going to (inaudible) discussion here. With over two fundamental dimensions, that’s internal which has to do with the department Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 5 itself and how it does it’s business and external which is basically the community. In other words each department is saying holding up a mirror to itself and saying how are we doing? There then looking at the community based on (inaudible) and why they are there in the first place, saying what are the issues and challenges out there. So if I’m in Mike’s department (inaudible) I’m looking at what’s going on, there are issues out in the community that we are here to deal with. So if I’m in Parks and say I’m Tom. I’m looking at the parks situation and I’m saying what are the things that causes heartburn here in this community that we really want to put our shoulder behind. I know that all of you already have feelings and opinions about some of those things, so it’s a matter of just jotting them down. The good thing to do though the reason I’m bringing this up again is its’ nicer to work in (inaudible) two dimensions, so you can jump back and forth. The question becomes what keeps us from doing our highest and best. Now your (inaudible) is city wide, so you kind of have to hold up a mirror to city government as an institution and say, what keeps us from doing our best work here? Where do we have discipline acts? Where do you have things that don’t work as well? If you have ever done anything in business called organizational mapping, it’s when you go through in organization and figure out what works really well and where do you have black holes and disconnects where things just don’t work well and you find very quickly things that don’t work particularly well but are easy to fix, all you have to do is get together, link arms and fix them. So part of the question that you as a council and a mayor and a council have to grapple over are what are the things about our government that we want to get arms around and fix? I tell everybody and I’ll tell you same as I’ve told the departments it’s always better and in their case it’s better that they work on what they need to work on then you looking at it, now same thing like the legislature I tell the state departments, you better get in there and hold a mirror up to yourselves instead of having the legislature tell you by golly you better get it done. Cause you don’t want an auditor to come in there and say this things all hosed up you need to fix it, you know it is. Just take a deep breath and get in there roll up your sleeves and fix it. So the departments, I think, have done a great job of looking at themselves and saying these are the things were we had barnacles on us that we need to kind of dry dock a little bit, we need to fix some things. Some of those are simple some of them are a little more thorny, and I think you know the community, obviously the community out there, you know this community well and you can start putting categories which we will do before I leave tonight, of things that are challenges out in the community that you really feel like this council and this mayor really need to address. We’ll try to get some of those categories up. So your purview is citywide their purview is based on their mission, if it’s parks if it’s law enforcement if it’s waste treatment or if its waste water or water. So they have a very narrow purview, yours is very broad. Now a lot of the work that will be brought into your work is that you can reach the end of these plans and stick out things, and say yeah that’s a big issue. Or they can give it to you and say we think this is a big issue that will be part of our work together. They’ll say we think this is a big issue and you might say yeah we concur stick it on the wall. You know, I think it will go very fast once you get into the process. So think about how we do this simple process is proven, and how do we do things better, what keeps us from it? So think about that in those terms, if you possibly can. Now what I want to do is, is hand out the departments Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 6 just so you all know, they will be getting the same handouts. What these are, are just examples of and I’m using ones that came out of El Paso county that I did about three years ago cause they turned out with a plan that got national recognition, these are examples of and I’ve explained that in the (inaudible) there in the first set are things that were kind of plain vanilla. Were they have a problem statement or a major problem statement, and then they have a set of rules and then they have a set of general strategies. Then you get into the next set; I hold one of these up too. The head of the departments will be getting these. Anita has the original of this and she will be getting these to the head of the departments tomorrow. So what we have to be able to do, this is the category, they picked the category of transportation, of course this is a big county, and then what are the goals tacked there to it, what are the strategies that we in the county or in this case the city plan to do. Very plain, one page, pretty straight forward but the reader knows what the problem is and what the goals are associated with, generally what the major strategies of this council and mayor have said this is what we are going to do. So there are some examples in there by category, and I say before we leave tonight we will start looking at some of your categories. If you turn to the one that is kind of toward the back, there is another one says more refined major challenge areas, kind of right in the middle there you’ll see one that starts with contentions, you’ll see ones, now this is where El Paso county went, they initially went with plain vanilla, and then they said they wanted more information to share with the reader, cause the reader is the public as well as themselves and their county commission and all the elected and appointed officials particularly throughout the Colorado Springs area as well. So they started putting in, you know information in here, and these are just some examples I didn’t take all of them, and they ended up going to two pages. My recommendation is lets stick to one or two pages and keep them very crisp, but this is what I want you to be thinking about. In this first section of your plan, this first big section of your plan, as part of this roll off up front, it’ll have your mission, your vision, your operating philosophy. You’ll have letters from the Council, the Mayor. You know some of that stuff. What the public tends to be interested, wherever I go, is this section, major challenges and the goals associated with it and the strategy. They can be fairly broad strategies, but what it does it gives you direction. It says this is where we’re going. So, these are examples of pretty much how they are written. There’s not a lot of mumbo jumbo in here. They’re pretty straightforward. It’s a matter of saying what do you want to address. They picked out their categories. This is what they ended up with. Then it becomes a question of the departments; like if you say you have park and green spaces would be one that we want to see addressed. So that would have to say to that department, okay, write up the problem. Then what kind of information would you like to depict in there? What shows depicts this issue? What demonstrates it in some sort of graphic depiction if anything? Then you can always find some stuff that the reader would enjoy or appreciate. Then what are the strategies? What are you going to do about it? Take a look at those. These will go out to all the department directors tomorrow. Examples only, but at least it shows you kind of what we have to start putting together toward the end of the month. Again, when I started moving into this format, quite a number of years ago, people have responded really well. This is what gets all the community response. This normally is what people end up publicizing. They don’t usually publicize all the Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 7 department plans. This is what we publicize. This is what they pass out. This is what they have community meetings about. This is where they get input. That’s your call how you want to do that. This is where, fundamentally we need to be by the end of the month. Let me stop there and ask questions. Any questions about how we pull this together? Does that make sense? Pretty straight forward. It’s not rocket science. That’s why I keep saying that the process of it kind of (inaudible) over the year. It’s a process that is --. It’s simplistic. It’s concise but yet it has meaning when you read it. You know exactly what it is in the page and a half (inaudible). Let me ask you, --. Well, let me do one more thing. (inaudible). There are always questions, and I’ve passed out to the departments and I want to pass out to you. There’s always questions with regards to the relationships between goals and objectives and action strategies. I want to pass these out because these are --. I just have six copies. (inaudible). This is information that is critical because if you’ll, and I’ll be happy to share with you if you ever just want to kick back and drink a cup of coffee and talk about it. Most of the plans that I’ve read, and I’ve been all over the country, maybe 100 a year, are just listings of activities. They are not true goals. Now, if you remember goals are to increase or decrease something or to, increase or reduce something. (inaudible) this morning, its interesting when you look at people and say well our goal is to create a new task force to explore this, this, and this. They go, what (inaudible) the litmus test for you as a Council and Mayor if you say what if you had all of that done next Monday morning? Everything you ever wanted was there Monday morning, what would you accomplish? A goal is an accomplishment. It’s an outcome on the other side. What that creates within departments, (inaudible), people sit there and go well, I guess we --. It almost always comes out we’d probably reduce the number of such and such. Then that’s the goal. So, what this does, it explains the relationship between a true goal and if there’s nothing we accomplish this year, its teaching the relationship between a true goal and what an objective, which is really just a short term goal. That’s all an objective is, its just an annual or a two year goal. Under those objectives are the actual strategies which become a little project plan that answers how are you going to accomplish this? That’s what ties back into the budget. When you start having quarterly meetings and certainly annual reports for variance, you say how did you do? How are you coming on that? Did you accomplish that? Did you get it done by the due date? You’re going to have real specificity for the first time throughout all departments. As we meet individually, I’ll show you like I did with Bill (inaudible) and we’ll tomorrow go over some of what we’ve already found. A lot of specificity in these plans. You can always have more. Some people might want it. Usually it’s the other side, people will want less. We kind of got the middle ground because what it does, it starts raising the bar and the expectation of what they come to you with. We talked about that this morning. People over time will come to you with better-prepared data, information, rationale, for what they’re asking for. Why they believe that you should go with this one or that one. I think that if we can keep two fundamental things in mind, one is we’re looking at internally and externally. Secondly we’re looking at what’s too high that we need to reduce and what’s too low that we need to increase. Everything in every department, as always, has fallen into either one of those categories. It always does. The one I mentioned before but I didn’t this time, is what are we doing just right? That becomes a goal to maintain. John Shawcroft has some of those. Like I say, certain little Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 8 wastewater treatment in particular to response time in the fire department, and police. Certain response times within a certain perimeter. We’re there; we need to maintain it. That’s part of our goal. You can have that as a goal every year. That’s fundamentally, as a Council, you have to say what are we going to increase? We’ve spent all this money, what are we going to do? We’re going to look behind and say what's the outcome going be? Every time you’re going to find out its going to be to increase or decrease something. Fully, 98 to 99 percent (inaudible). I’m a little redundant about this because it’s so important, they’re just lists of activities. You’ll go down and say our goal is to create, build, buy, replace, investigate. Those are all strategies or activities. Once you’ve done all that, that’s what a Council and a Mayor has to look at. What do we get out of that, if we’re going to be spending the green? Think about that. I think that’s really important. We’ve got to go kind of fast here. What I would like to do is take a little bit of time to see if we can identify some of the major categories. I have some other things, which I promised some of you that I’ll give you some articles that I’ve written in the past that I would like to share with you. I’ll get those out for you later. What are some of the categories and challenges? We can start internal or external. It doesn’t matter that you believe we need to begin to think about as we move toward our session? Think category, (inaudible) parks. You kind of go by department, it's fairly easy to do. But what are the ones that tend to come back on you that we really need to address? De Weerd: Customer service. Luthy: Okay. Bird: Customer service. Luthy: Okay. Bird: That is both internal and external isn't it, John? Luthy: Well, -- Bird: Because it’s us taking care of the customers but it’s also what the customer perceives how we do it. Luthy: It’s any way you want to look at it. Its also how do we treat each other? Bird: That’s right. Luthy: I mean, if I’m in the finance department, I have customers. If I’m in the HR department I have customers. If I’m MUBS I have external customers. So, I think you’re looking at both sides there. I really do. So, this is a major one, okay? This probably ties into image and reputation as well. Is that an area of challenge? Bird: Reputation? Luthy: Image? Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 9 Bird: Image, you bet. De Weerd: For every government. Bird: I think any government is image. I think it starts with the Mayor down to the lowest employee. The one we just hired today or something. Luthy: An on going challenge. De Weerd: The lowest employee? The newest. Bird: Well, the newest. When you’re the peon of the company for four years, then you’re the lowest. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Communication. Luthy: I suppose again, that would be --. De Weerd: Both. Luthy: That internal, external? Bird: Yes sir. Don’t a lot of these goals and things fall both ways, John? In both external and internal? Luthy: They certainly can. You bet you. You bet you. Particularly the ones, remember we talked about tangibles and intangibles? Bird: That’s right. Luthy: Tangibles are a lot of stuff, equipment, backhoes, things like that. Whereas intangibles are like loyalty, moral. Those are types that are intangible. Then image is certainly intangible. So is reputation. Corrie: One of our external is big right now is growth and land use. De Weerd: Growth management. Corrie: I don’t know whether we can manage growth. De Weerd: Well, that’s how you – Corrie: You can – Bird: You can try it. Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 10 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: I think working at it, yes. De Weerd: Okay, out of control growth. Luthy: Really that’s the issue because management is really the solution. I mean, that is our desired solution. De Weerd: Either you manage it or you don’t. Luthy: It's like herding (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: The developer thing (inaudible). Good, so this is going to be measured. De Weerd: Budget. Luthy: Okay. Bird: Eliminating waste. Luthy: Okay, so – De Weerd: Is that Sanitary Services? Bird: No, not --. Luthy: I’m going to put efficiency and – Bird: Inefficiency in our government. (inaudible). Luthy: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nary: What about employee retention? Bird: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Training. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: That probably is in – Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 11 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) McCandless: Part of it yes. De Weerd: Yes, slash training. Luthy: I call it employee development but that is a big one. The issue from what I understand from Pauline is lack of a systematic approach. That’s one of the things this article deals with is a true employee development system. Bird: I think consistency --. How do you want to put it? That’s efficiency? De Weerd: That regional, (inaudible). Luthy: Now, is that us going out because we can’t control other people cooperating with us? De Weerd: No, I think it's all working together and you know, we’re the center of all of this and so --. (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: (inaudible) that is surfacing now, John is IT problems. Luthy: Good, that is a big one, yes. Corrie: That’s a very expensive one. Luthy: Yes, I have a feeling it's not going to get any cheaper or less complex. You’re going to find all of this is going to taper off on us. I don’t think so. See, this is another one that will tie back into efficiency because this becomes a tool in your toolbox. It's a big tool. When you really look at, that’s why we say we start with an intro. And say how can we make this the best-run corporation in the valley? What are the tools we have? How good are they? IT is one of those. Training, people skills, our customer service. (inaudible) entirely in our (inaudible) but also our (inaudible). De Weerd: how about, it might be education but, public empathy. Luthy: Yes. Now is that a problem? Obviously it's an issue. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: That’s one that’s kind of hard to control. McCandless: Real hard to control. Bird: Yes, real hard to control. Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 12 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: Empathy happens whenever you’re doing a lot of things right. They don’t think you are doing the right thing (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: Will, you don’t have any masking tape do you? I left mine out in the back of my car. De Weerd: We lock it up for public hearings. Luthy: All right. Bird: Will’s got some. Luthy: Think of some of your departments and the major things that they have to get their arms around. Go back to Parks, go back to Public Works, going back to Law Enforcement. Since Mike’s here, Gary and Brad’s here. What are some of the major challenge areas that you see? Is crime, (inaudible) something you’ve got to keep a beat on? De Weerd: Definitely. Luthy: Okay. Do you feel, some of you have been around it for a while? Do you see crime working it's way up? Bird: I think crime has increased in the 36 years I’ve been here nut I don’t think it has increased to the population because we’ve had a very good police force and we’ve had very good officers working for us. I think that they are very much out in the community and --. De Weerd: It's diversified though. Bird: And they – (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Yes. Bird: You’ve got different type of crime, but I believe that we are handling it as well as anybody and keeping it down. Luthy: Some of that is your maintaining level. (inaudible). Also staying ahead of the challenge is the diversity in crime and how that changes (inaudible). So, it's staying ahead of that as well. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 13 Luthy: One of the things to keep in mind is that one of, we (inaudible) didn’t actually do as a problem solving team, we go right to the problem. What we need to do, in the next few weeks is say these are categories that we want to kind of drill down into. Law Enforcement is probably going to be one of those. In every community, public safety is big. De Weerd: Transportation. Luthy: That would be another one that I think would be a major one. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: We really need more lanes on that freeway. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: I think another thing we need to look at in departments, in parks particularly is partnerships with private – De Weerd: Well, that’s just cooperation and regional. Luthy: That’s all fixed. If we had all the partnerships in the world, what can we use those to get? Would we get more recreational? Bird: You’d get more space developed. Luthy: Okay. De Weerd: More (inaudible). Bird: Without taking taxpayer dollars to do it. De Weerd: Better utilization – Bird: -- of your resources. De Weerd: -- of taxpayer holdings. Luthy: One group outside of Denver that I worked with, everything they did, they wanted to kind of have the umbrella of quality of life. They said we don’t want to deal with anything that does not directly impact in a positive way our quality of life. That was the beginning and ending premise. They were a very wealthy little community outside of Denver. It was interesting because they said, what impacts our quality of life? Well, you talk about water. You know you talk about water and sewer. You talk about, you know public safety. You talk about parks and green space, recreational opportunities. Certainly this one. Not directly, but what's interesting was everything they said has to start with how we feel as we (inaudible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 14 Bird: That’s right. Luthy: What about economic prosperity? Is that an area that you as a Council discuss and keep your shoulder --? De Weerd: I think that’s under growth. Bird: I don’t. This is an economic development that is completely different. I think that basically we haven’t (inaudible) as much as we could. We’ve been very fortunate (inaudible). We need to definitely look into it. Nary: I think the difference is the Jabil Circuits versus Thousand Springs. Bird: Yes. Nary: One is providing opportunities, job opportunities as well as fiscal opportunities to the City versus, growth. When I think is growth in that, is both residential and commercial. Bird: Yes. De Weerd: Yes. Nary: He’s talking about how (inaudible). That I think is good. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Economic development is bringing people in for jobs – De Weerd: Planning what kind of commerce you want. Bird: -- and stuff like that. Luthy: It's commerce and enterprise. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Commerce and stuff that helps with your growth. De Weerd: it's employees. Luthy: It's basically people coming for functions and spending money. Nary: The industrial park is a method that’s used sometimes. It's a tool that’s used to drive economic development, providing that space, (inaudible) Silverstone. Luthy: There you go. So, that might be an area too and saying that’s a challenge area for us because this committee is going to say, you’re on your tiptoes looking Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 15 over the, you know the couple sets of foothills, where we see the community. What we’re going to be out trying to create in the future. That might be the nature of it. So, we have the parks and green space. Corrie: (inaudible) environmental (inaudible) would be very important. We can keep up with the infrastructure needed to kind for the environment. Luthy: Okay. Bird: I’d say quality of life. Luthy: Environmental quality. So this is going to pull water, wastewater, -- Bird: (inaudible) Luthy: Several aspects of Public Works into it as well. De Weerd: What about recreation? Luthy: Well, I kind of stuck recreation up here – De Weerd: I didn’t see the green space. (inaudible) Luthy: I probably should put a separate thing here. Partnerships becomes a fix, kind of how are we going to accomplish more under some of these. Private partnerships becomes a major tool in our toolbox. De Weerd: Yes. Bird: It don’t just have to be parks that has partnerships. Luthy: That’s right. Bird: It could be several different --. Transportation could be done. Corrie: Economic development. Bird: Economic development is very big in partnerships. Luthy: Yes. As we distill through these here over the weeks ahead you’ll find some things are subsets of others. We’ll end up with a fairly short list. The average list is 12 or so long. These are the major areas. You can pull into area like this, environmental quality. These can become your goal areas too. You know, our goal is to increase or maintain, depending on where you are right now, your environmental quality, you know as the City matures, you know or ages, or grows. However you want to say it. Same with that law enforcement. Another thing to be thinking about is do you want the law enforcement and fire, all under the public safety? We might easily, those departments, like those separate. But, something to think about when we have our discussion. Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 16 Bird: (inaudible) because we have a partnership in the fire department. (inaudible) Luthy: Certainly the rural – Bird: We have the rural that is a partner with us and they are about three or four percent of our revenue, isn't it? Isn't that right? 26 percent or something? Yes, we probably would have to separate the police and the fire because there is different aspects of that partnership there that has to buy in with your goals and stuff too, even though we’re the managing partner. Luthy: Yes. Bird: They’ve still got – Luthy: That’s a good way to look at it too because there really is a social slash business arrangement. Bird: Yes it is. Luthy: Or it's a political social slash business. Bird: You’ve got to treat it as a business, John. You know it's just like you know, it's got some City it's got to be treated just like a private business. Your goals should be like a private business. Nary: Another challenge too John, is we haven’t really talked about (inaudible) expansion or elimination of services. I think as the City grows, a lot of these things, some of them are very reactive to what's going on in the community. I think at least for discussion we would want to do what you talked about. Is your service that we provide that should be privatized or done in some other manner? Or is there service that we aren’t providing that really should be something that the City should be. Evaluate it and provide another service (inaudible). So, it's ahead of the curve, not just reactive. Luthy: That’s a good point because that’s going to go back up to the efficiency, the government efficiency and waste. Are we managing this City as efficiently and as effectively as we possibly can? How are we doing on time? We have to watch the time. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: We need to stop pretty much right on time. These are the kind of things that we need to --. What I’ll do is I’ll type these up and get them out to everybody so we can kind of have these to feed off of. Think of the big ones and we can always go, you know we can go from the smaller ones and expand or go from the larger ones. But, when we meet in a couple of weeks with the departments, their juices are already flowing, most of their issue areas are going to fall into Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 17 these types of categories. I mean, virtually all of them fall into efficiency, effectiveness, relationships, styles, and things like that. I think you’ll find that probably looking at these, probably half of these fall under, or a third of these would fall under some of the other ones that are up here as subsets. Let me put them all together and get them out to you. Then start thinking about that. De Weerd: Do you have our email addresses? You can just email them if you want. Luthy: Okay. I can certainly do that. I have some of them. I can get them from Will. He usually provides that for me, so I can get that. The question before we leave today --. Let me try to pass these articles out while I’m doing this. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: How should we, I know Will had emailed everybody and asked everybody to look for their calendars. Has anybody, do you know if we’ve centered on any dates? De Weerd: When are you out of town? Corrie: The 21st , the week of the 21st . The 17th or the 18th , as far as I have as clear days. How are the 30th and 31st ? Luthy: I have a breakfast on one of those days with the Mayor of Sandpoint because he’s a member of the AIC. Are you a member of the AIC? Corrie: Yes. Luthy: Okay, so you’re – Corrie: You must be going to have it on the 30th . AIC is coming into town that day. Luthy: Yes, he wants to meet the first –. I just talked to Paul today. He wrote in both days but he wants it on the 30th . So, the 31st is wide open. Are you tied up with the AIC on the 31st ? What about the 1st , Friday, the 1st ? De Weerd: The 17th doesn’t work? Corrie: Friday, in February? Luthy: Yes. Corrie: (inaudible) 9:00. De Weerd: Oh, well he can’t. He’s committed. Corrie: Friday the 1st is a good day. Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 18 Bird: That’s fine with me. Luthy: That’s a good day because AIC – Bird: Just let me know. Luthy: -- stuff will be --. Should we tentatively mark that down? I mean, I know Will is working where. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: On the first? Berg: (inaudible) Corrie: It shouldn’t. I have it on the --. The vote meeting is on Wednesday. Wednesday night at five. Don’t you have a board meeting on that same night? Berg: I have (inaudible). Luthy: What about the 25th , which is --? Bird: That’s fine with me. De Weerd: The Mayor is gone. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) McCandless: That’s the day I have knee surgery too. Luthy: We can meet at your recovery thing and hang out. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: You’ll have more fun doing it. Luthy: Is Friday a good day for everybody? Is a Monday better or a Wednesday better? Bird: Just let me know ahead of time. Nary: Mondays are better. Fridays are (inaudible). McCandless: Fridays are usually pretty good. Luthy: Well, we need to because all the directors have to be there too. So, we need to figure a date. Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 19 De Weerd: So, you can’t do it the 18th ? Luthy: I can do it on the 18th . De Weerd: Can you Mayor? Bird: Does that give you time to get this, if our departments aren’t going to have it in until the 15th ? Luthy: Well, -- Bird: I know you’re pushing for the 11th , but you know, it's going to go to the 15th . *** End of Side One *** Bird: The 18th is a Friday. Corrie: I’m sorry. I’m still in January. I’m sorry. De Weerd: It sounds like this (inaudible). Corrie: The 18th ? That’s all right. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: The 18th of January? De Weerd: Yes. Bird: The 18th of January. Luthy: Okay. McCandless: That’s all day? Luthy: Yes. (inaudible). What would that be Mayor? Corrie: (inaudible). De Weerd: The 17th would be better but if we can do it on the 18th --. Luthy: The 17th is fine with me. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: On the 17th ? Bird: Yes, let’s go the 18th . Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 20 De Weerd: I’ll go the 18th . Luthy: Okay. Bird: Are we all set? Luthy: Yes. Corrie: What time do you want to start? Luthy: Well, we probably should be out there ready to start at 8:30, I would say let’s convene and have (inaudible). Let’s get together and start at (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: What do you do? McCandless: It's at where? Spurwing? Bird: So, we start at 7:30? Luthy: Yes, if everybody can be there, say 7:30. Maybe just kind of have some coffee or something between 7:30 and 8:00. As soon as everybody gets there at 8:00. Corrie: Okay. We’ll take care of all the food and the drinks and that. Luthy: Okay. I think we’re set. We need to get the information out to the directors and see if they can (inaudible). Bird: The Mayor will take of that. Luthy: Let me pass out to you, some of you have this already. Mayor I think you do. Let me pass out this. Two articles, one has to do with the concept of leadership and legacy, which has been published in Australia and Canada and some other places. What this has to do with partly what we’re doing, the strategic planning. It has to do with developing a process that really endures. That’s really the foundation that we’re laying with the planning. The second is an article on employee productivity which was a cover story that I did back 98. I want to share it with you, some of you have already seen it but some haven't. This is one extra. Do you want this one? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Luthy: I would like to, and I’d really encourage you to try to read these before we have our meeting. Some of you have already seen these but I’m not sure who has and who hasn’t. One is, the employee development, which I think is going to be one of your real cornerstones that you’ll be laying in the future, a process to do that. The other one has to do with the concept of actually developing things Meridian City Council Special Meeting January 8, 2002 Page 21 that truly leave a legacy for the departments as well as for the Council and the Mayor. FYI, certainly. I encourage you to read them before we meet on the 18th . That’s all for me. Bird: Thank you very much, John. Luthy: You’re welcome. Bird: Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would move that we adjourn the special strategic meeting. De Weerd: Second. Corrie: Okay. Motion made and second to adjourn the special meeting. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:30 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK