Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home City Council will likely continue into the next year with a slightly altered version of its current goals.
Councilors met in a three-day retreat at the Police Department, which was open to the public, March 21-23 to conduct training and to review and update the city’s goals. Present were Cortney Nash, Susan Coleman, Lisa Gourley, Mayor Greg Mahler, Diane Gerson, James Goble and Dave Trask.
The council will consider and may adopt the goals at an upcoming regular meeting.
During the retreat, the councilors made no changes to the city’s vision or mission statements.
The city’s vision statement says, “The Sweet Home community members have elected the City Council to represent their collective best interests. We have been entrusted to make decisions that do the most good, for the most people for the longest period of time.”
“The City of Sweet Home will work to build an economically strong community with an efficient and effective local government that will provide infrastructure and essential services to the citizens we serve,” says the mission statement. “As efficient stewards of the valuable assets available, we will be responsive to the community while planning and preparing for the future.”
To achieve its mission, the council has four goal areas: infrastructure, effective and efficient government, essential services and economic strength.
The council is not altering its first goal, infrastructure.
In that area, the council wanted to and wants to develop specific steps to implement adopted master plans for water, sewer, streets, parks and property, and to increase community awareness about the needs.
“Part of our problem was we didn’t realize how decrepit our infrastructure was,” City Manager Ray Towry told The New Era. He pointed to the detection last year of numerous leaks in the water system across the city. The city has just now been able to identify the problems, which is information that will be used to build the budget.
City staff didn’t know that a water reservoir was leaking, for example, Towry said. Now, “I think, at least, staff and council understand what we need to do.”
City officials recognize they need to do a better job increasing community awareness about issues like that, he said. To serve that goal, officials plan to put more information online. The city has posted plans for the upcoming Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion and rehabilitation on its website, and a flier outlining the project is going out with water bills this month.
“We’ve got to make sure people know what we’re finding and how we’re going to address it,” Towry said.
The council is changing one word in its second goal area, an efficient and effective government. The draft changes its fifth objective, implementing “strong financial practices” to implementing “financial best practices.”
Without taking full advantage of all the features in its finance software, the city’s financial processes, while “strong,” have not met modern best practices, which are used “everywhere else,” Towry said. Over the past year, the city has been using more features in the software, simplifying billing and reports.
Under that goal, the city also will continue five other objectives, update and streamline processes, develop continuity in planning and permitting, invest in long-term staff stability and training, develop transparency in all communication and employ sound technology to maximize efficiency.
In its essential services goal, the council placed specific features it wants under its objective to increase access to quality healthcare services: memory care, senior assisted living, physical therapy, urgent care and mental health services.
The council also added further specificity to its objective to improve community safety, naming police services along with community design.
“They want to make sure the burden is not just with the Police Department,” Towry said. For example, the city has removed brush and trees and added lighting at Sankey Park to improve visibility.
Mahler said the city is looking at crosswalk improvements to improve pedestrian safety, budgeting for flashing lights at the intersection of 22nd and Main, for example.
The third objective remains unchanged as the city continues to work with regional services to connect them to members of the public.
The city is working regionally with different services to avoid redundancy, particularly in economic development and homelessness, Towry said.
In the fourth goal area, economic strength, the council wishes to implement a business vitalization plan; support future economic development efforts within City Hall; and develop economic – with the addition of “business education” – opportunities with regional partners.
The council and staff loved the idea of “business vitalization program,” Towry said.
In a lot of ways, the city’s Commercial Exterior Improvement Program, which provides grants for exterior improvements at local businesses, is helping meet that goal, Mahler said.
Once the Community and Economic Development director position is filled, Towry said, the city will begin working on a low-interest business loan program.
The city wants to become the community hub wen it comes to economic development, he said, working with the organizations for the sake of consistency.
The council is adding business education in the goal area to address one of the reasons businesses fail, he said. Most businesses fail, but it’s not because they have the wrong product or are incompetent.
It’s often because people don’t know what they don’t know, Towry said, and the solution is knowledge, education. To avoid redundancy, the city would like to work with regional partners to provide business education to Sweet Home.
“We’ve made some positive changes to our community,” Mahler said. “And I see more positive changes this year. It hinges on the excellent work ou city manager, city staff. You go around the community, you can see their performance stands out.”
The council will hear public comments on its goals at 6:30 p.m. April 9 and April 23, regular council meetings and then consider adoption at its regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. May 14. Meetings are held in the training room at Sweet Home Police Department, 1950 Main St.
For more information or to see a copy of the draft vision statement, mission statement and goals, stop by City Hall, 1140 12th Ave., or call (541) 367-8969