The Fayetteville City Council began its annual strategic planning retreat on Tuesday at the new Bill Crisp Senior Center on old Raeford Road.
The council and the city’s senior staff met for five hours, making decisions about its fiscal 2023 work plan. The council is scheduled to complete the retreat Wednesday morning.
The first day included a review of the city’s annual work plans, which were compiled from the priorities and strategies in place for each city department. These included high priorities from the Fayetteville Police Department for citywide camera expansion, gun buyback program and gunshot detection technology. The city clerk's office submitted the need for a new electronic voting system, and the Fayetteville Regional Airport included airline terminal improvements and airport public art.
Council members worked to align the work plan with each of the city’s half-dozen strategic goals while identifying any opportunities to update or adjust. Along the way, they identified, prioritized and agreed on key priorities in the work plan.
These included public safety, better housing and poverty rate decline under the organizational performance, and connectivity, sidewalks and curb and gutters under infrastructure needs.
Deb Manzo of Business Transformation Solutions USA led the strategic planning session, which included a review of the city’s commitment to being a high-performing organization driven by data-informed decisions, transparency and accountability.
The city’s six strategic goals include being a safe and secure community, a responsive city government supporting a diverse and viable economy, city investments in today and tomorrow, a desirable place to live, work and recreate, a financially sound city providing exemplary city services and collaborative citizen and business engagement.
“Aligning the organization for success starts from the mission and vision,” Manzo said after the retreat. “Things cascade throughout the organization. The council already has great clarity on its goals – what their vision is and which goals last over time. They had already worked on their strategic objectives, which is how I’m going to accomplish those goals. So today was all about, ‘What is the work being done to move the needle on the strategic objectives?’
“So, the council may have a holistic world view of all the nuts and bolts and what’s going on in this massive place that’s called the city of Fayetteville. In addition to providing first-rate public services," she said. "So, this is in addition to trash collection and recreational activities, mowing the grass at the parks and recs, and financial stuff. Budget stuff.”
Council members said that the city's goals are important. There’s not one that isn’t, she noted, adding that some of the goals blend together.
“They’re definitely focused on – and this will be clearer tomorrow – because they’ll also come up with some ideas and some things that are important related to each goal,” Manzo said.
What's the future of the city, Manzo asked during the session, in relation to the city's investment today and tomorrow?
"Well, we're 50 years behind where we need to be, unfortunately, because we couldn't annex. Everything that went into 'the Big Bang' is way, way behind," Councilman Johnny Dawkins said. "We need curb and gutters. We need sidewalks. That would help the property value."
"That decision we may not see the fruits of for a decade or more, we need to be thinking," Mayor Mitch Colvin said. "I think all our economic development site preparation, our workforce, all of that should be planned for what a decade would look like for this city. ... We need to plan on the front end."
Council members spoke of wanting to build a Fayetteville for the future.
“They want to take care of the people that need taking care of today, whether it’s businesses, jobs, better housing or education pieces to make sure we can live, work and recreate,” Manzo said. “But they also want to be planning for the future so that investments today drive change and innovation and the best place to live for the future generations that live here.”
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Michael Futch covers Fayetteville and education for CityView. He can be reached at mfutch@cityviewnc.com
