City Council Work Session on Strategic Plan Draft - September 9, 2026
City Council Work Session on Strategic Plan Draft - September 9, 2026
The Columbia City Council held a work session on the first draft of the five-year strategic plan, facilitated by project manager Maddie Power Spencer. The council reviewed proposed revisions to the mission, vision, and core values, and discussed the six strategic priority areas. Several modifications were suggested, and the plan will undergo community and employee review before final adoption in early November.
Discussion Items
Mission Statement
- Council reviewed two drafts. They preferred the second option (starting with the verb "to serve") but requested inclusion of "full service city" and use of "enhances" over "supports." The current mission is "to serve the public equitably through democratic, transparent, and efficient government."
Vision Statement
- Council members liked combining the first half of the first draft ("welcoming and safe community") with the second half of the second draft ("cultivates connectivity, creates thriving places for growth, fosters inclusivity"). They added "safe" explicitly but removed "opportunities for all." Debate occurred over present vs. future tense; the final wording will be refined with community input on specific terms like "vibrant" and "safe."
Core Values
- Service: Approved the draft: "We maintain a talented and engaged workforce to provide the best possible service."
- Communication: Council wanted to include "listen" and changed the draft to: "We engage the public through accessible, accurate, and timely communication."
- Integrity: Changed the core value from "integrity" to "accountable" with the statement: "We are ethical, fair, and accountable stewards of our community's resources."
- Teamwork: Modified to start with "we" instead of "our employees": "Through trust, respect, and collaboration, we achieve results together."
- Equity: Council preferred the second draft (action-focused, centering community voices, identifying/removing institutional barriers) but wanted to retain the first sentence of the current definition acknowledging the city's role in systemic oppression. It was suggested to place that recognition in a definitions glossary rather than in the core value itself.
Strategic Priorities
- Sustainable and Strategic Development: Goal statement and objectives were approved with no changes.
- Resilient and Reliable Infrastructure: Council requested explicit mention of renewable energy (not just "diverse energy sources") in the goal statement and objectives. They also asked for a performance measure on renewable energy adoption.
- Safe Community and Thriving People: Noted that performance measures in this section were less specific than others; council asked for more concrete, measurable targets (e.g., percentage reductions). They also flagged that emergency response objectives only mentioned fire response, missing police response – staff will review.
- Healthy Economy and Financial Well-Being: Council wanted to replace "expand the tax base responsibly" with clearer language about generating revenue from businesses. They also requested an objective or performance measure addressing economic mobility disparities (e.g., child poverty by race).
- Communication and Connection: Changed the goal from "residents are informed" to "residents feel informed." Council wanted dates expressed as months or quarters instead of seasons for accountability. They also asked to accelerate the completion of a citywide communication strategic plan (originally winter 2027).
- Our People, Our Organization: Council added the verb "invest" to the goal statement. They requested a performance measure on employee pay and benefits. A concern was raised about referencing the non-public HR strategic plan; it was agreed to make that plan public. The equity audit roadmap should be brought to council before being referenced as an objective.
Overall Concern
- One council member expressed that the plan lacked emphasis on quality-of-life elements such as arts, culture, and vibrancy, which are currently dispersed under infrastructure and visitor bureau objectives. It was suggested to give these elements more explicit attention.
Key Outcomes
- Council provided direction for revisions to the mission, vision, core values, and each strategic priority area.
- Staff will incorporate feedback and prepare updated drafts for community and employee review (starting with employee picnic on September 17, 2026, and a public survey).
- A graphically designed version of the plan will be produced.
- The final strategic plan is scheduled for council adoption in early November 2026.
- Staff will check version control issues (e.g., missing police response objectives) and clarify definitions (e.g., "balanced budget") in the plan's glossary.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, so Stacey, am I taking those over to you? I'll just pass it right along to Maddie Power Spencer with Barry Dunn. Okay. Hi everyone, good to see you again. Nice to see some of you for the first time. So my name is Maddie Power Spencer. I am the project manager for the Strategic Plan. And tonight we will be walking through the first draft of the strategic plan. First thing I want to say is we took a lot of your work and a lot of staff's work in the second day for staff. They spent about six, seven hours out was at the field house. And then continuing sessions, refinement sessions afterwards, an hour and a half to two hours per area. We ended up with six areas and then refinement even after that. So what you're seeing today has had four iterative drafts to get it where it is. And I want to say staff spent a lot of time on this, and we're happy to bring it to you tonight. So the first thing I would really want to talk about is an overview of what a strategic plan is. So again, a strategic plan. Oh, we can talk about guidelines for participation. Sure. Why not? So the five things that we like to say when we're doing consensus building type facilitation is we'll focus on four of the five today because we're not gonna have a lot of we conversation, but we always like to bring that up. So speak from your own perspectives when having conversations, respect other people's point of view because there could be differing opinions on different sides tonight. Stay focused on the conversation at hand, ask questions. Um if it's about the strategic plan process and how we got here, I will answer. But you also have staff here to answer more specifics about the objectives and certainly some of the performance measures. I will encourage you to keep it above objective level and at that point because the performance measures are specific to staff, but I'll talk a little bit about that when we get to that diagram and how that separation is, but happy to answer questions on those. Um, and then hopefully this is a good working uh draft and walk walk through the process today, and that's our goal. So, strategic plan is what the city will focus on, what it will prioritize. It is also a living document that guides decision making. We say it's typically for about five years, but it can be anywhere from three to seven, depending on the community. It is a tool for transparency and accountability. It always talks about what resources help support it, then so it includes staff time, technology, and of course, funding for all of that. And then after this plan, and we'll talk a little bit about that next steps is what comes after this. And we've already kind of started it, which is the implementation plan. So throughout the refinement session, staff gone into the details and the weeds a little bit, and I helped pull them up out of the weeds for objectives, and we included those in uh what is now the draft implementation plan. We'll do some more refinement sessions on what those look like after tonight. But my point there is there's action steps in that implementation plans of how things are actually going to get done and what they look like tangibly. The elements of strategic plan and what we'll talk about tonight. So we'll focus mostly on strategic priorities, but we also will look at mission, vision, and core values. We did all this during the staff time and uh time with you all. We have the current mission statement and then example um. We're bringing you two drafts. That's what I want to say, drafts of mission, vision, and then core values drafts as well. Um, the mission is what you do now for whom and how you do it. That includes both city council and staff. The vision is where you're going. This is five years in the future. What is the community look like and what has it achieved? And then core values is the underpinning of all of the organization's uh values. What does that look like and how it carries out it make its mission and how it interacts with the community? So that's the organization itself.
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