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Council Priority Setting Workshop Summary
On March 3, the City Council participated in a Priority Setting Workshop facilitated by Deputy City Manager, Tina Kapoor. The workshop provided an opportunity for Councilmembers to celebrate the current City Work Program (CWP) progress, discuss priority projects of importance, and conduct rank voting to establish the CWP for FY 2025 -26 and FY 2026 -27.
Council also directed staff to return to Council to finalize the FY 2025-2027 CWP on March 18, 2025.
Workshop Objectives
The Workshop focused on the following objectives:
• Reviewing resources on effective City governance.
• Developing and adopting a strategic vision framework to guide decision-making and long-term planning.
• Conducting a priority ranking exercise to identify and align Council’s top projects with community needs and available resources.
Workshop Outcomes
1. Effective City Governance: Staff presented best practices and strategies from Institute for Local Government to promote collaboration, transparency, and effective governance.
These included approaches for handling policy and operational matters efficiently.
2. City Council Goals: Councilmembers then reviewed the existing five City Council Goals and unanimously voted on staff’s recommendation to split their existing goal of “Sustainability and Fiscal Strategy” into two separate goals -- Environmental Sustainability and Fiscal Strategy.
3. Focus Areas: Staff introduced three new focus areas as part of the Strategic Vision Framework – Fiscal Resilience, Small Business Revitalization, and Emergency Management. These were unanimously adopted by Council and will help guide strategic initiatives and resource allocation to better serve the community.
4. Strategic Vision Framework: Following a discussion on long-term Goals and Focus Areas, the Council unanimously adopted a Strategic Vision Framework that will serve as a foundation for guiding policy decisions and organizational priorities.
5. Priority Project Ranking Exercise: Councilmembers engaged in a structured ranking process to identify priority projects for the upcoming two fiscal years. The results of this
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exercise will inform the City’s budget and Work Plan to ensure alignment with Council’s vision and strategic goals. The ranking exercise is detailed below:
Ranking Exercise
At the workshop, Council ranked their top projects, using the Council adopted methodology.
After the first ranking, items were sorted in priority order and separated into high, medium, and low priority projects. Council agreed to forego the low priority projects and move the high priority projects forward. Council then ranked the medium priority projects again. Once that ranking was finalized, Council agreed to add the top six medium projects to the already approved high priority projects, which resulted in a list of top 19 projects. All ranking lists were posted as part of written communication following the Workshop. Additional information can be found on the City Work Program website.
Strategic Vision Framework
The Strategic Vision and newly adopted goals can be found on the city’s Vision and Goals website, as illustrated below.