Know Your Strategic Plan

In April of 2019 the Marco Island City Council set out to chart a course for the city for the next 15 years by creating a Strategic Plan. The purpose of the plan was to establish a vision for the city moving forward and then to set goals and objectives for creating the roadmap to get there.

The City contracted with Lyle Sumek Associates Inc. for $39,602.44 to develop the Strategic plan using the following model:

• Vision – values based principles that define Marco Island’s preferred future.
• Mission – principles that define the responsibility of city government.
• Core Beliefs/Values – personal values that underlie performance standards for employees.
• Plan – strategic goals and outcome-based objectives.
• Execution of Action Agenda – policy (City Council) and action (City Management and Staff) agendas.

To use the planning model the City Council chose over 70 different citizen stakeholders representing every constituency on the island to be part of the process. The diversity of the overall group ensured that people from every facet of life on Marco Island were represented. Mr. Sumak broke the large group into smaller groups and used a small-group process to work through the model.

The following is a quick breakdown of the five components of the strategic plan model.

Vision

• The group came up with the following vision for the City:
• Marco Island 2034 is a great residential community with small town charm.
• Marco Island 2034 is distinguished by our beauty, our world class beach, and natural environment and our
• In 2034 our residents enjoy our convenient coastal living, and take pride in our Marco Island community.

Pulled from this vision statement were the seven areas (see bolded statements in previous paragraph) that reflected the priority areas the goal setting would focus on.

• great residential community
• small town feel
• beauty
• world class beach and natural environment
• waterways
• convenient coastal living
• pride in our Marco Island community.

The groups then described  a series of “means” statements that described the actions needed to achieve these seven areas. For example, under the “Beauty” area the first three means to get their were:

1. Attractive entrances and gateways.
2. Well-designed and well-maintained city infrastructure for roads and medians
3. Well-designed, well-maintained and replaced public and private landscaping.

This process of describing the means to achieve the desired outcomes was continued for all seven areas.

Mission

The group defined five dimensions of the mission of Marco Island’s government:         

1. Provide excellent municipal services.
2. Protect the Island’s Character and Lifestyle.
3. Act in a financially-responsible manner.
4. Celebrate customer-focused services.
5. Offer opportunities for Community engagement.

The groups then described then repeated the process of writing means statements for each of the five components of the mission of the City Government

Core Beliefs/Values

The acronym SPIRIT was devised to describe the core beliefs and values that underlie the mission of the City Management and Staff:

• S- serve
• P- professional
• I-integrity
• R- results
• I-innovative
• T-team

Means statements were then developed to demonstrate how to achieve each of the six components of the city staff and management’s core beliefs and values.

Plan

The plan for implementing the vision and mission was broken down into four goals that would be evaluated every five years. The first five-year segment will run from 2019-1024 at which point it will be evaluated. Each goal had measurable objectives that could be assessed at the end of each of the three five year segments making up the 15 year plan.

The four goals were:

1. Financially-sound city providing excellent services
2. Pristine Natural Environment and Quality Water
3. Control Growth and Development/Redevelopment
4. Great Place to Live

Here is an example of three measurable objectives taken from the first goal:

Goal: Financially-sound city providing excellent services

Objectives:

1. Have a high level of customer satisfaction with City services and services response.
2. Hire and retain a professional, talented workforce dedicated to serving our community with competitive compensation.
3. Provide City services in a cost effective and efficient manner.

Execution of Action Agenda

This component of the Strategic Plan focuses on specific things that could be done in the first year to jump-start the first five years. Two agendas were established; a Policy Agenda that focused on actions the City Council needed to take and a Management Agenda that would be established by the City Manager and staff. Each agenda had lists of  Top Priority and High Priority items used to prioritize what needed to get done.

Policy Agenda Items for 2019-2020

Top Priority

• Police Department Organizational Review
• Water Quality Testing
• Building Permit Process: Performance Review
• Five Year Financial Plan with General Fund Projections
• Proactive City Communications/Public Engagement Policy, Plan, and Program
• Stormwater Policy and Management
• Comprehensive Plan Update

High Priority

• Code Enforcement/Compliance
• Swale: Assessment & Problem analysis
• Annual Road Improvements/ Service level and Funding
• Strategic Plan Development and Institutionalization
• Reuse Water Policy/wastewater treatment plant upgrade
• Parks Master Plan/Parks Development
• Environmental Specialist/direction

Management Agenda Items for 2019-2020

Top Priority

• Collier County 1 cent sale tax allocation
• City Employee Compensation and Benefits
• Fire Station # 50: Direction
• MS4 Permit: status and direction
• Veterans Community Park

High Priority

• Comprehensive Infrastructure and Assessment and Plan With Funding
• Community Survey
• City Department Comprehensive Review
• Yellowbird Widening Project
• Action Agenda 2019-2020

There were over 100 Policy and Management action agenda items listed for the period 2019-2020. This following are three examples of these items:

1. Selection of Police Chief
2. Fire Employee Climate Survey
3. Fertilizer Ordinance; work session.

I suggest you take some time to download the Strategic Plan and review it over the next week. The City Manager is being reviewed for his first year’s performance and I would think the City Council would look at the Action Agenda to see what has been accomplished under his watch.