Bartlesville City Council approves final strategic plan
A months-long process to examine the City of Bartlesville as an organization through a process involving public input and an outside consultant has come to an end after a Tuesday City Council vote to approve a comprehensive strategic plan.
Approval of the plan is just part of the process, however, as city staff now take steps to implement it, City Manager Mike Bailey said during the meeting.
“This plan, honestly, is just the beginning, we’ve got a long way to go. But it does help to provide direction to city staff, it helps to provide continuity as councils come and go,” Bailey said
“Everything we’ve done up to this point was fun, it was planning and it allowed us to think creatively, but in the end, we really have to get down to this part of it, which is where we begin to implement the plan.”
The plan, which identifies the city’s values, mission and vision, outlines five strategic priorities for the city to undertake in coming years and objectives for implementing each. Each department will be tasked with fulfilling the objectives, with the council receiving periodic reports about progress, Bailey said.
Among the strategic priorities outlined in the document are effective infrastructure, such as more thorough planning of street and sidewalk improvements, and economic vitality, which will involve eliminating barriers to recruiting businesses and young professionals to Bartlesville.
The city will also prioritize community character by investing in community spaces and multimodal transportation and emerging issues by partnering with local organizations focused on homelessness and child care.
Among the most important of the plan’s priorities, Bailey said, is financial strength and operational excellence, which will involve improving the city’s workplace culture and morale. This will involve encouraging professional accreditation and training and updating the performance-based evaluation process, among other things.
“This one is the one that is extremely important to me, because this is how we build the capacity to do the other things. If we’re good at this, we’ll have the ability to do the other things we have in the plan,” Bailey said.
Bartlesville Vice Mayor Jim Curd said while the plan is good, the council needs to keep in mind they only have two-year terms — after which a new council member could come in with different priorities.
“I think overall it’s a great plan, the concern I have is in the detail. As some of these ideas of planning come forward, I don’t want to further limit the council’s ability to change plans, change budgets,” Curd said.
Bailey said the city is trying to strike a balance between planning ahead and being “flexible enough to react to change.”
Bartlesville Mayor Dale Copeland, who was closely involved with the planning process, said the strategic plan is helping to focus the silos of the city as an organization, creating a unified team.
“The city tends to be reactive. … That will always be the case. But this shifts that focus a bit to be intentional,” Copeland said.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Bartlesville City Council launches new strategic plan
