Here are the goals from Council’s goal setting meeting on Saturday.
1. Broadband — we hired a consultant and developed a plan and it was nearly adopted by Council, and then SiFi came along and said they’d hook every home up to fiber broadband. So the plan was never adopted, even though it included other components, such as a Dig Once Policy. So we have no concrete plan right now. It’s long overdue.
2. Homelessness Plan — This is ongoing work that would have happened anyway. It will be done in conjunction with the County. One area the city really failed in the last two years was not cooperating with the County. ***You wouldn’t believe how much work I had to do to get our former City Manager to take a phone call from the former County CEO to talk about homelessness. Three months!***
3. Green technology — I support electrification in new developments — that is, no gas appliances. Instead it looks like we’ll try to find ways to incentivize that, rather than require it. It’s a let down.
4. Fire Department — this was already on the books. We’re going to have to talk about funding mechanisms.
5. Evacuation Plan — we have an Emergency Services Director and we almost have a big ol’ plan. But it has to be put in the community’s face.
6. Roads etc — Currently we keep our streets so our average Pavement Condition Index is 65/100. We’re talking about raising the standard the standard to perhaps 70/100 over a few years. Which means more money will be budgeted.
6. Streets & Sidewalks — We use numerical scores to rate their conditions. Our streets, for example, are at 65/100, which is the median for comparable cities. Staff will return with some options to raise our scores by X points over Y years. It’s not cheap and it’ll have to be budgeted for. (I’ll note Council has yet to even see estimates of the costs of all the housing/homeless services we committed to over a year ago. Also badly needed staff pay raises.)
7. Undergrounding utilities – this year we’ll hold a special council meeting to discuss the costs & benefits, and options to pay for it.
8. Short Term Vacation Rentals like AirBnB – we’ve been trying to get this done for years and years. It was supposed to be done last year but we really screwed up.
9. Customer Service – because you should be able to call or text one number to report potholes or dirty park park restrooms or to ask how to file a claim for auto repairs after you hit a pothole
10. Charter Amendments – we need to amend our charter to increase council compensation (even if it doesn’t take effect for ten years), and to let us hold a special election to fill an empty district seat. There’s more I’d like to see. What we talked about is setting up a citizen commission to make recommendations to Council. Then Council can get it on the ballot in November 2024.
11. Cultural Unity Events – Maybe Parks & Rec can do a concert series that moves from park to park?
12. Employee retention – There has been an exodus at City Hall. A consultant is completing a study on compensation, but there’s more to job satisfaction than that.
