There are a variety of plans that a city needs to have in order to function. We are required by law to have a General Plan, which guides us in our growth and development. We have plans that are developed to help us plan and install needed improvements in the city, i.e. water lines, sewer lines, power lines, roads and storm water facilities. We can have so many plans that unless we have an over-riding strategy to coordinate these they can become disjointed and confusing.
This past week, the City Council approved the the Washington City Strategic Plan for the next five years. This plan is a revision of the original plan that was created in 2008. The original plan was meant to communicate to our staff, elected officials, and citizens the mission statement, vision statement, and values that we adhere to. The plan was organized in four areas of interest: quality of life, quality of service, managed growth, and economic development. Specific goals and strategies were then developed for each area of interest. Over the past three years we have accomplished a majority of these goals and felt it necessary to revisit this strategic plan.
Over the past several months a committee has reviewed future needs, concerns by our citizens, and goals established by city departments. They then revised this plan to carry us into the next five years. Our areas of interest have changed to include: embrace economic growth, ensure financial integrity, enhance public service, elevate citizen experience, and enrich cultural awareness. With specific goals for each of these areas.
I hope you will take some time to review this new Strategic Plan, to offer us advice on how to best accomplish the goals, and join with us in reaching these goals. We believe, as Councilman Bill Hudson acknowledged upon approval of this plan, “...if we could accomplish all this in the next five years we’d definitely be better off as a city.”
Click Here to download and view these plans.
Office of City Manager Blog
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Washington City's Technology
Recently the local newspaper featured Washington City and our conversion to a "paper-less" city council. This project culminates effort for many years to bring us to this level. It also just the tip of the iceberg on what has happened technologically speaking to our city hall in the last five years.
By providing iPads to each of the council members we not only give them more tools in their hands as they make decisions but we save money in doing so. We recently estimated that going paperless will save approximately $2,500 a year in paper costs, labor to package their materials and delivery. Not to mention the efficiency of them having access to city codes, previous minutes, and resource materials as they make decisions.
As I said, this is the tip of the iceberg. In the past five years Washington City has made huge improvements in our technology. What started out six years ago as a couple of rebuilt computers has grown into a vast and powerful network of services and features. The great part of this is that this has grown in a very cost effective manner. Many services we use in the city are either free or have minimal charges. A good example of this is our conversion to Google Apps several years ago. This low cost option has given us many benefits including: greater security and redundancy, cloud collaboration tools, off-site access, and the savings of being able to avoid expensive annual licensing costs. In fact Google Apps (cloud computing), is what made this transition to paperless much more effective and efficient. Our website is another area of great improvement as we work to bring more and more services to our community through this medium.
So what will the future hold for us? Well, we will continue to look at ways in which technology can improve the way we deliver services and improve your quality of life as citizens. We will look at those services in which it is not needed to have a "personal touch" and can be provided in a more mechanical, less expensive way than with human resource. These services we will continue to enhance through technology thereby shifting our resources to providing the best quality human resource where it is needed. If you have any ideas that you would like us to explore regarding this, let us know.
In the meantime, please enjoy the features that we do provide through our website, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Youtube Channel, Xpress bill pay options, on-line applications, etc. It is our goal to continue to make working with Washington City as enjoyable as possible.
By providing iPads to each of the council members we not only give them more tools in their hands as they make decisions but we save money in doing so. We recently estimated that going paperless will save approximately $2,500 a year in paper costs, labor to package their materials and delivery. Not to mention the efficiency of them having access to city codes, previous minutes, and resource materials as they make decisions.
As I said, this is the tip of the iceberg. In the past five years Washington City has made huge improvements in our technology. What started out six years ago as a couple of rebuilt computers has grown into a vast and powerful network of services and features. The great part of this is that this has grown in a very cost effective manner. Many services we use in the city are either free or have minimal charges. A good example of this is our conversion to Google Apps several years ago. This low cost option has given us many benefits including: greater security and redundancy, cloud collaboration tools, off-site access, and the savings of being able to avoid expensive annual licensing costs. In fact Google Apps (cloud computing), is what made this transition to paperless much more effective and efficient. Our website is another area of great improvement as we work to bring more and more services to our community through this medium.
So what will the future hold for us? Well, we will continue to look at ways in which technology can improve the way we deliver services and improve your quality of life as citizens. We will look at those services in which it is not needed to have a "personal touch" and can be provided in a more mechanical, less expensive way than with human resource. These services we will continue to enhance through technology thereby shifting our resources to providing the best quality human resource where it is needed. If you have any ideas that you would like us to explore regarding this, let us know.
In the meantime, please enjoy the features that we do provide through our website, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Youtube Channel, Xpress bill pay options, on-line applications, etc. It is our goal to continue to make working with Washington City as enjoyable as possible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)