Our master plans that we have out there, the comp plan or the waterfront master plan, Parks McMaster Plan.

One of the things we hear a lot is we have these plans, they just sit on a shelf and don't do anything.

A lot of those plans have specific goals associated with them.

And so the question is, you know, are we achieving the goals?

The one question was asked is how many, how far along are we in completing the comp plan?

And you know, the general consensus, well, I don't know because we haven't really measured it, right?

And so the goal of this piece of software, this tool, so to speak, is to help us kind of track our progress, but B, it's also a reporting tool and a demonstration piece.

Um as Kate and Dan will kind of get into the nuts and bolts of what it is.

Uh the plan from my perspective is to step one is to get all of our plans input input into the software.

We can link them together so there's alignment between the various plans.

Um, but more so than anything, just for you guys as you're as you're watching the presentation, listening to what it is.

It's my goal is to keep it more high level so that we're looking on looking out towards the future, more strategic objectives, and not so much, it's not really a day-to-day operations tool.

It's more so are we achieving the long-term objectives of the city, kind of help help the city move forward.

Uh, is certainly one thing that I've heard from some folks in town is that Valdez has a lot of potential.

We just never really we never really get off the ground with any of it.

So this hopefully is a is a tool to help us to make that happen.

So Kate will kind of introduce our presenter and some more details as to what what and how this tool will be used.

Thank you, Nate.

Um yeah, so I'll just build a little bit on um what Nate was saying.

We we looked at this tool first as a plans management software, and you know, as Nate was talking about, kind of the history in Valdez, or at least certainly the public sentiment has been that we we do a lot of planning and studies, and then they sit on the shelf and collect dust.

And we know that that has happened sometimes, and then I think there are also a lot of times where there's a lot of different folks at the city in different departments, different staff members who are contributing to these various projects, and they've got their heads down doing the work, and we don't necessarily stop to track it, communicate that it's happened, tell each other what's going on, or share with the public our successes, or potentially our failures, or where we haven't made the progress that we want to.

And so one of the things that we heard loud and clear from the community during the comprehensive plan process is that they want better communication out to the community and better transparency of what you know what activities the city really is doing.

Where are we putting in the work?

Where are things maybe going more slowly than we had intended?

Where do we have successes?

So that was really the goal that led us down the search where we ended up finding this tool, achieve it.

And so, as Nate said, the first step of implementing the software is that we're going to use it to track our plans.

Um, we can definitely expand from this list, but the initial list that we're looking at is the comprehensive plan, the waterfront master plan, the parks and rec master plan, the economic strategic plan, and eventually when we get it adopted, the hazard mitigation plan.

So we're gonna start there, and you know, uh those plans do interface with each other, they build on each other, and um we're we're in a position with these plans where they are fresh.

Most of the most of them, I think, or maybe all of them have happened in the last five years.

So these are fresh plans, but we're getting towards the time where we really should be reporting back on them, and we're gonna start to look at refreshing, at least with the comprehensive plan.

We want to, you know, reevaluate, look at all these goals.

And so, as much as I wish that we had had a tool like this from the beginning, right?

When we adopted the plan, this is a perfect stage for us to start to build it out and make sure that we have everything tracked and we're communicating.

So we can look at what's working in the plan, we can share with the public what has been done, but also we can set ourselves up so that we're in a better place to update the plan next time.

And so, you know, today um we did a training with all of the staff who are going to be the users who are actually reporting back on the different actions within the comp plan.

And we're giving them those tools to report back on the effort they've done, but we also acknowledge that we are learning things, even just from Dan and I working together, getting the comprehensive plan into the software.

We've learned a lot about how we define our metrics or how we set deadlines and things, and we're learning what we might want to improve the next time.

So this tool, I'm going down a little bit of a tangent, but this tool is also something that's helping us learn to plan better in the future too.

So I'm really excited about that.

Um we mentioned it, but the other really important piece of this puzzle is the reporting and that public transparency.

So right now we're at the stage, and Dan's gonna go into much more detail, but where we're we do have all of the actions from the comp plan in the software, but we need to go live and have the staff start to actually report back.

A lot of the work has already been done, but we need to capture it.

Once we have a pretty good flow where we've captured a lot of where we are and we have something to share, there's tools where we can start both reporting regularly to our city manager so he knows what progress has been made and where we're at, but we can also start sharing with you or other boards and commissions, um, and then eventually look at uh a public dashboard and options there when we have enough in the software that we're ready to share.

So that's kind of the direction we're going.

Um so the plan tonight is that um, well, I'll introduce Dan Griffin, who's here, you all have been chatting.

Um, but he came all the way from Arizona and he's been working really closely with myself and some of the other directors who have plans that are going into the software to get us set up and and ready to actually launch and have the staff really start to interact with it.

So Dan was here today doing a training with our staff.

Um, and then the idea for tonight's work session is for him to do a bit of a demo and kind of show you the tool, a little bit of high level how staff will be using the tool, but then also show you some examples both from the comp plan that's in the software, um, but also other communities who have already gone live and have been tracking within Achieve It, show you some examples of what they've done so you can kind of see where we're going next.

And then another question that I hope that you keep in mind while Dan is talking and showing you these examples is that this is an option for tracking council priorities.

As staff, we're really focused on the plans implementation piece right now, but it is something that we've talked about could lend itself to tracking your priorities and the work we're doing to further those priorities, but it's also not something that we're here to say we need to use it in that way.

So keep that in mind as a possibility, and I think um Dan will share an example with you to help picture what that would look like if you go that direction.

Yeah, so Dan, pass it off to you.

Um I was telling my wife on last night, she she was saying, Well, I wonder if people know how far you came to get there.

And I go, Well, if they go to Costco, they have to go far to so I think they know how far it came.

And she goes, It's interesting that you're going for an on-site like this.

So I go, you know what's cool about this is I get to see the what do they call the Tawa, you know, the the region, this the sense of what's going on, the um it's a magical place here.

So I'm I'm very pleased to be here.

Um, you guys are are very lucky to have to call this place home.

Can we tell them how many hikes we did?