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Record of Proceedings

Raleigh City Council Work Session: Strategic Planning Update (January 14, 2025)

City Council — Tuesday, January 14, 2025
BodyRaleigh, North Carolina
SessionCity Council
DateTuesday, January 14, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
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Transcript — Verbatim
0:16

Gavel is in for the work session.

0:20

Welcome, and I will turn it over to staff.

0:24

Awesome.

0:25

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

0:28

To today, welcome to today's afternoon work session.

0:31

We have with us staff from the Office of Strategy and Innovation to give us an update on the city's strategic plan, and I will turn it over to Heather McDougall.

0:40

Yes.

0:40

Good afternoon.

0:41

Great to see everybody.

0:42

I'm Heather McDougall.

0:43

I'm the head of the Office of Strategy and Innovation.

0:46

And I have with me Christina Layos.

0:48

She is our strategy and impact manager.

0:51

We're a familiar crew to you.

0:52

Next week we'll have something a little bit more lively and interactive, but we wanted to give you some background knowledge just to set the tone.

1:00

And for those that are joining kind of the strategic plan for the first time to give you that background information.

1:07

So I will turn it over to Christina.

1:13

Good afternoon, Council.

1:14

I know we're having some slides, technical difficulties.

1:20

So I'll stall for a minute.

1:22

Hello, good to see everyone.

1:24

Happy Tuesday.

1:27

So, like Heather said, we just want to give some context for the strategic plan.

1:32

Thank you, Luke.

1:35

And make sure that we are all aligned on how we got here, kind of where we are, and then that way we can have a deeper discussion at the retreat on setting priorities for that next strategic plan that's due to come online next fiscal year.

1:52

So we're going to start by sharing a quick overview of the strategic plan and our organizational context.

1:58

We are going to review the results of our strategic plan evaluation.

2:03

We'll share some high-level results of our resident engagement to inform priorities for that next plan.

2:11

And then we'll wrap with a timeline and some action items as we look ahead to that council retreat.

2:18

All right, so the strategic plan.

2:20

This is a formal plan that is adopted by City Council that translates your vision for the city and your goals into actionable strategy that can be implemented over three to four years.

2:34

This plan guides our organization's focus, our work, our resources, and importantly, we assign cross-departmental teams of staff to implement each of the initiatives in the plan.

2:45

So unlike strategic planning at other organizations where it's kind of a static document, we are actually it's a living breathing framework for us that is being acted out at the city every single day.

2:57

So that is very special about how we do strategic planning and want to make sure that you all knew that.

3:05

So if we look at all of the city's strategic planning processes, uh, the strategic plan fits right in the middle.

3:12

So it's really that bridge from long-term vision into that short-term action that we carry out every day.

3:38

So within each of our key focus areas, we have objectives.

4:08

Okay, so I won't be discussing any specific initiatives from the current plan today, but if you are interested, we have a report available online that details our progress over the last fiscal year.

4:20

We do this every year annually, so you can look on our website and search strategic plan to find that.

4:27

Okay, so I want to shift gears a bit to our organizational context.

4:32

So since the launch of that very first strategic plan in FY16, this has been a tool to help direct action and align us to our committed priorities, and then also has evolved a bit over time to meet our city's changing needs.

4:50

So during this 10-year period, we all know our city has grown quite a bit.

5:00

So the next plan really should reflect this organizational maturity and also the need for new approaches in order to help us achieve those goals we've set out for the city.

5:08

Now another important thing that happened during that time was that the Office of Strategy and Innovation was established.

5:14

So we have been hard at work building partnerships, helping to bring new and innovative projects online for the city and making sure that all of our work is grounded in this human-centered perspective on government service delivery.

5:30

So this is also, we're very excited.

5:32

This will be the first plan that OSI gets to develop, launch, and implement from start to finish.

5:37

So go City of Raleigh.

5:41

Okay, so to start our work, we conducted an evaluation of the current strategic plan to help us understand what is currently working well and what are some of those opportunities for enhancements.

5:53

This was a six-month process that involved over 250 staff and expert voices to help us really dig into this.

6:02

We did a lot of work, including staff surveys and interviews.

6:05

We captured feedback from executive management, departmental leaders, and also outside experts in strategic planning.

6:13

And what we learned was there are lots of things that are working well.

6:18

I'll name a couple of those.

6:19

Our cross-departmental teams of staff are very successful, really helps us take effective action on our work.

6:26

That is one of several things that we do plan to keep, but we also learned that there are some areas for improvements.

6:33

So we need to do a better job of prioritizing initiatives that are actually within the city's purview and influence to act on.

6:40

Keeping our initiatives more actionable and focused so that staff are clear on what it is we're trying to do and accomplish, better use of data and reporting, and also tighter alignment to the budgeting process so that we have the proper resources to actually implement the work of the strategic plan.

7:00

So actually, OSI has already started to implement some of the changes that we that we see here.

7:06

So you'll see that reflected in the process as we move forward to get the full plan presented before you all and adopted.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Strategic Planning█████████████████████████████████████████41%
Community Engagement█████████████████████████25%
Public Engagement██████████████████18%
Technology and Innovation████████8%
Public-Private Partnerships████████8%
Summary of Proceedings

Raleigh City Council Work Session: Strategic Planning Update (January 14, 2025)

At a 4:00 PM work session on January 14, 2025, the Raleigh City Council received an update on the city's strategic planning process from the Office of Strategy and Innovation (OSI). Staff presented results of a six-month evaluation of the current strategic plan, a resident engagement effort involving over 350 residents and 45 staff, and a timeline for developing the next three-to-four-year strategic plan, which is due to launch in July 2025. No formal votes were taken, but council members provided direction on priorities, terminology, and alignment with other city plans.

Presentation and Discussion Items

  • Strategic Plan Overview: Heather McDougall (OSI director) and Christina Layos (Strategy and Impact Manager) explained that the strategic plan translates council’s vision into actionable, cross-departmental initiatives. The plan is updated every three to four years and guides resource allocation. The current plan evaluation (involving over 250 staff and external experts) found strengths in cross-departmental teams but identified needs for better prioritization of actionable initiatives, improved data use, and tighter budget alignment.
  • Resident Engagement Themes: Staff shared high-level challenges identified from surveys and focus groups (drawing on 2022 community survey data and new engagement):
    • Arts & Cultural Resources: Barriers for residents outside downtown, limited awareness of programs, and limited affordable spaces for artists.
    • Economic Development & Innovation: Lack of workforce opportunities for vulnerable populations, fragmented support for entrepreneurs, and complex business/contracting processes.
    • Growth & Natural Resources: Desire for more curbside services, confusion about recycling, limited access to climate resilience programs, and limited affordable housing options.
    • Organizational Excellence: Inconsistent service standards, fragmented customer service systems, outdated policies, and limited staff training.
    • Safe, Vibrant, Healthy Community: Over-reliance on traditional policing, gaps in police-community trust, and limited community-building efforts.
    • Transportation & Transit: Unreliable transit, gaps in pedestrian/cyclist infrastructure, and limited investments in clean energy transportation.
  • Timeline: Staff outlined key milestones:
    • January 2025: Council retreat to finalize priorities and align objectives.
    • February 2025: Results from the 2024 community survey (conducted by consultant ETC) expected.
    • March–April 2025: Staff develop specific initiatives.
    • May–June 2025: Council reviews and adopts the strategic plan.
    • July 2025: Plan launch; a public launch event planned for fall 2025.

Council Discussion and Feedback

  • Councilor Harrison requested data on Go Raleigh transit performance for the retreat and asked about performance measurement data. Staff noted that a consultant will help create a dashboard for the next plan. Harrison also asked about vacancy rates and competitive compensation—staff said those could be included under organizational excellence.
  • Councilor Branch asked how the strategic plan aligns with department and long-range plans (e.g., comprehensive plan, business plans). Heather McDougall explained the strategic plan is a shorter-term (3-year) focus and does not replace ongoing operational work. Cross-departmental initiatives are those needing extra attention; routine operations remain outside the plan.
  • Councilor Patton supported the idea of a dashboard in plain English (e.g., “percent of buses running on time”). She also requested a checklist of accomplishments from the current plan to aid storytelling with residents. Staff said a cumulative report is being compiled for release in spring 2025.
  • Councilor Melton asked how the timeline allows incorporation of community survey results (due February) since priorities are finalized in January. Christina Layos noted consistency across recent surveys and said adjustments can be iterative.
  • Mayor Cowell and Councilors Silver and Jones advocated for renaming key focus areas (KFAs) to be more understandable to the public. Mayor Cowell suggested replacing “Growth and Natural Resources” with a housing-focused label, and “Safe, Vibrant, Healthy Community” with clearer public safety terminology. Councilor Silver emphasized focusing on urgent and important issues (e.g., affordable housing, public safety, transit). Several council members agreed on simplifying language.
  • Councilor Forte supported renaming KFAs to align with council committees (e.g., moving back to “Law and Public Safety”) and noted overlap between “Growth and Natural Resources” and “Safe, Vibrant, Healthy Community.”
  • Councilor Branch highlighted the word “partnership” appearing frequently in the document and asked how partnerships are managed. Staff acknowledged the city’s reliance on partners and that the strategic plan reflects collaborative work.
  • Councilor Silver raised concerns about survey fatigue and whether outreach is strategic. Staff explained they triangulated from multiple data sources and targeted engagement to those most impacted by specific services.
  • Councilor Melton asked about using AI to gather resident feedback. Chief Information Officer Mark Wittenberg noted the city is developing an AI governance policy; initial deployment will focus on the customer relationship module and using Microsoft CoPilot to analyze survey results. He emphasized providing references alongside AI-generated answers.

Key Outcomes

  • No formal decisions or votes were taken. Council directed staff to:
    • Provide a summary of current strategic plan accomplishments for the retreat.
    • Bring Go Raleigh performance data to the retreat for discussion on transit reliability.
    • Prepare an agenda item for the January retreat to discuss potential renaming and restructuring of key focus areas.
    • Continue development of a performance dashboard with clear, accessible metrics.
  • The next step is a more interactive retreat session on January 21, 2025, where council will finalize priorities and discuss resident stories.

Meeting Transcript

Gavel is in for the work session. Welcome, and I will turn it over to staff. Awesome. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. To today, welcome to today's afternoon work session. We have with us staff from the Office of Strategy and Innovation to give us an update on the city's strategic plan, and I will turn it over to Heather McDougall. Yes. Good afternoon. Great to see everybody. I'm Heather McDougall. I'm the head of the Office of Strategy and Innovation. And I have with me Christina Layos. She is our strategy and impact manager. We're a familiar crew to you. Next week we'll have something a little bit more lively and interactive, but we wanted to give you some background knowledge just to set the tone. And for those that are joining kind of the strategic plan for the first time to give you that background information. So I will turn it over to Christina. Good afternoon, Council. I know we're having some slides, technical difficulties. So I'll stall for a minute. Hello, good to see everyone. Happy Tuesday. So, like Heather said, we just want to give some context for the strategic plan. Thank you, Luke. And make sure that we are all aligned on how we got here, kind of where we are, and then that way we can have a deeper discussion at the retreat on setting priorities for that next strategic plan that's due to come online next fiscal year. So we're going to start by sharing a quick overview of the strategic plan and our organizational context. We are going to review the results of our strategic plan evaluation. We'll share some high-level results of our resident engagement to inform priorities for that next plan. And then we'll wrap with a timeline and some action items as we look ahead to that council retreat. All right, so the strategic plan. This is a formal plan that is adopted by City Council that translates your vision for the city and your goals into actionable strategy that can be implemented over three to four years. This plan guides our organization's focus, our work, our resources, and importantly, we assign cross-departmental teams of staff to implement each of the initiatives in the plan. So unlike strategic planning at other organizations where it's kind of a static document, we are actually it's a living breathing framework for us that is being acted out at the city every single day. So that is very special about how we do strategic planning and want to make sure that you all knew that. So if we look at all of the city's strategic planning processes, uh, the strategic plan fits right in the middle. So it's really that bridge from long-term vision into that short-term action that we carry out every day. So within each of our key focus areas, we have objectives. Okay, so I won't be discussing any specific initiatives from the current plan today, but if you are interested, we have a report available online that details our progress over the last fiscal year. We do this every year annually, so you can look on our website and search strategic plan to find that. Okay, so I want to shift gears a bit to our organizational context. So since the launch of that very first strategic plan in FY16, this has been a tool to help direct action and align us to our committed priorities, and then also has evolved a bit over time to meet our city's changing needs. So during this 10-year period, we all know our city has grown quite a bit. So the next plan really should reflect this organizational maturity and also the need for new approaches in order to help us achieve those goals we've set out for the city. Now another important thing that happened during that time was that the Office of Strategy and Innovation was established. So we have been hard at work building partnerships, helping to bring new and innovative projects online for the city and making sure that all of our work is grounded in this human-centered perspective on government service delivery. So this is also, we're very excited. This will be the first plan that OSI gets to develop, launch, and implement from start to finish. So go City of Raleigh. Okay, so to start our work, we conducted an evaluation of the current strategic plan to help us understand what is currently working well and what are some of those opportunities for enhancements. This was a six-month process that involved over 250 staff and expert voices to help us really dig into this.

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