Springfield City Council — January 9, 2023

0:09 all right I'm going to call the screen one more extension to order with the roll call again mayor Ben Gordon here counselors Weber broadly here here Doyle here stationery here thank you we have more item tonight which is the 2023 Council retreat with our Federalist city manager thank you good evening mayor council so I'm going to ask you all to hearken back here and just about and for our new council members I'm going to talk a little bit about what um the council did last year for the retreat and maybe tee up some suggestions for this year this is not a very fancy presentation

0:57 but where do I need to point this I think we could just go what is it we've had fun and my battery just died for you and I will help you okay well I'll do the next story we're going to make this work today was that you or me that was me all right so when we began the retreat last March um we started off um with the facilitator who at John Morgan and he is well-known um in our area he ran the Chinook program which is a kind of local governance program he's been a city

1:43 manager he's been an electric elected official he sort of knows all the rules so he kind of gave us a primer on what does the council do what does the staff do how do those roles work together just because the council had not really met together in a retreat format for quite some time so we thought it might be a good idea to do a little Refresher and then I gave an update on some of the priority projects that the Departments are facing within the next couple of years um again for the purpose of check-in and I know that the council you know you see the things that come before you but there's a lot of other things that are happening they may not always be briefed

2:28 on so I wanted to give a sort of a general overview so that you the council had a context of when you're making prioritization what is the city doing at Large and then finally um we talked about um what could be some potential initiatives so in other words what are things that the council members are interested in what are the things that are your priority um and then we had some discussion about prioritization um and really there were a lot of items there was a lot of creativity in that room and like the count the facilitator kind of grouped them into General categories kind of and it was a little bit loose but I think you know it kind

3:13 of suited its purpose I'm trying to pull the list down a little bit to a more manageable format to prioritize I think maybe an unintended consequence though is sometimes when you group things together you're like okay so what was more important within that group you know so I would say it was a good starting point but the and the categories were raked but it wasn't necessarily A a formal like this is our top priority in this and in any kind of sequential way it was more of these are the things we're interested in generally speaking there's these we have a higher interest in this and then these are things that are not as important and I want to give that context because when you're doing these types of retreats

3:59 you know it's tempting to to make everything important and as we all know when everything's important then nothing is important you know because and it doesn't give any real clear sense of direction so I just want to put some disclaimer language around that because when um it will be up to you in this next Retreat moving forward to look at these again and maybe we can take a little bit more um time with this area so just to just a thought and I'll I'll come on in a second so ajp can help me that would mean it worked all right so basically now disclaimer I am a city manager not a graphics designer so I put this together but I wanted to sort of Give A visual

4:46 representation of what were some of the things that were ranked as a high priority for the council so when the category of strategic um revisiting and I think that's more of just you know talking about planning some of the conversation about Mission Vision Values that began in 2019 and then really had some disruption due to the pandemic so you know where do we pick that work up again and what would that look like you know there's some things that just need to be a little bit recalibrated so that was kind of that catch-all the jobs in Economic Development uh you know I think that's always been a very high priority of the selected body and so just talking in general about what the city is doing

5:32 currently for economic development and then um we've also kind of beefed up our internal efforts in the the city manager's office to be able to address some of the large projects that we have facing us so I'm talking about how those roles would work in Economic Development I think we'll have a good update for you if you want to talk about that title again because we have now we have Ali here um and she's done she's totally hit the ground running so um and we have some projects that are really now starting to ripen that we're that we're working on as far as Revenue strategy that pertains specifically to the structural imbalance of the city's General bun and we've talked about this ad nauseam but I I really think it's important to talk

6:18 about not just you know grow new strategy and and then they at the time the council said well look at also if we had to do cuts in an adjustment to make that structure come into play um candidly we've cut really deep as a city and we're at the point where the cuts that we have made even say 10 years ago we are still not at levels that Kessler made in 2008 from a staffing perspective yet the demands of the city have grown exponentially and we talked a lot about that some of those demands are were mandated by the state we have no control over them such as the middle housing mandates climate friendly Equitable communities was another

7:03 mandate so um you know it's it's and then we we've continued to grow I mean we really are not slowing down we've had large projects so we talked a little bit about some of the external pressures that have um come to the city and what our staffing levels have looked like in light of those changing Dynamics uh the next thing we talked about was uh Team Springfield and we kind of called it 2.0 because uh Team Springfield and just for the record I'll name the agencies in team Springfield but it's the City of Springfield this Springfield School District um Springfield Utility Board AKA sub and willamalane Park and Recreation District so we all work together very collaboratively

7:49 um in Prior years this group did a lot of joint projects together and it was very project focused in the community when the pandemic hit the group really coalesced around how do we work together on messaging you know what kinds of decision making were we doing around facilities and employees and rather than meeting say quarterly we now meet weekly and it's much more of a relationship building troubleshooting type of dynamic and then we brainstorm educational topics and also we do have a check-in with Council which I believe you had in October when I was I was actually out of state unfortunately for that but I hear it went very well and so

8:35 I'm happy so just kind of talking about what that structure looked like and how well it had been working especially for that um in that particular situation uh we talked about prioritization of infrastructure projects uh mainly a lot of you know Street and road projects that you know we still have a lot to be addressed in that with the city and our pavement condition index and you know I asked our Public Works um director about that or our operations very common about that and um you know how many percentage of our streets are at you know say a poor condition and it's pretty substantial so um I'll touch on that and I I guess I would just say you know to

9:20 close out that issue um that part of those projects were addressed through the street Bond um that we just completed the final project for that and I believe that was yeah that was 10 million dollars to be broad projects so kind of the discussion point was do we pursue that again and if so what would that look like knowing that say if you went for a 10 million dollar um Street bond in essence you're probably getting about eight million dollars worth of projects because of the cost of labor materials inflationary factors so just to be determined uh we talked about community community communication kind of in context of that you know really showing our community being specific about what the projects are what they will do

10:06 um for the city as far as what what can what will they look like how will they help people get around the city what would be included in being very specific so people knew exactly where their money was going and what the timing would be on that um we also talked about again within the context of community communication uh the importance of passing the Springfield police Levy and the impact that it had on our overall budget not just the police department and very happily to you know that passed with 65 percent uh approval so that was um you know check that one off the list I guess um the other part was uh we had some discussion around clarifying and strengthening committee structures so you know what is the expectation of you as council members when you are

10:52 serving as a liaison for a community advisory committee and you know does that need to be recalibrated with recognition that you know you were all volunteers you give your time these are a lot of times maybe on evenings or maybe even during the day when you're you know people are at work or have other obligations you know do we need to think about that structure so that we can cast a wider net for people that could be able to serve on Council that could be an obstacle to people if they feel like wow it's not just sitting here at Council meetings and reviewing the volumes of material that you have to go through there's also this element so how much is that is really necessary and what are those structures are so I think that is a good uh conversation to probably

11:37 continue uh we also talked about housing and infrastructure um really I the city has an action plan on that but we need to probably go back and revisit that it's been a while since that has been updated so that was kind of on the um pot plus side on the lower end of the scale where projects that were happening but maybe not necessarily Rising as high as the other ones as far as the indoor track um that project I would say is probably in a pause mode for a lack of location um there really isn't a to my knowledge um a substantial funding structure behind it and there's a there's some

12:22 pretty significant gaps there that would move that down in the priority list where other projects that are more right would then move up um the decent Street project also was a little bit lower and then I climate change was the list that the facilitator wrote on this I want to be clear it wasn't that the council said that they did not care about the environment or climate change it was just kind of a recognition that that's a very broad broad topic cities have very narrow roles in what they do within the overall governance structure so what does that really mean for us and we talked a little bit about again some of the state mandates that have been imposed on the city like the climate friendly Equitable communities while we don't disagree that climate is

13:07 important we we did kind of take issue with the level of prescriptiveness that that rulemaking had um and so we talked a little bit about that I guess this is made so just moving forward for this year one of the things I think that a takeaway maybe from this last retreat was that we are really um seeking to get full participation from the council but again that was a year ago we were still pretty uncertain about people meeting in person and um it's weird because now there's more variants and you know I just when you think you're getting a handle of this pandemic it's something new crops up however we really felt that

13:52 this energy that you all have when you're sitting in a room together and can talk and kind of bounce ideas off of each other had some real value so I think the going forward ask would be a commitment from Council to be able to come in person and then the other part would be really nailing down that date and kind of holding it as sacrosanct we did we held it on a Saturday last year that would probably be what we would have to do however I think we can trim up the time frame um we could probably you know um if I didn't do as much in the beginning we don't have to front load as much we can get more to prioritization we can work on agendas but I think we can trim down the the schedule probably by a couple of hours

14:39 um and so really just need to Hideout date location um a new facilitator Mr Morgan is retired fully and it's always good to give other people a chance as well you don't want to always have the same people but I do I really strongly believe having a facilitator helps at least me because then I mean I I have no problem with facility facilitating meetings and I've done it a lot but you you can't really engage and listen and take things in and also facilitate you have to do one or the other um so it should we decide to go that route we would just need to do some pre-planning work with the mayor and also council members I believe the facility last year college each individually it just kind of got a sense of what was important for

15:25 you for that and how would we and actually you as a group defined success for that for that day so that is it any questions or thoughts Leonard I was um looking at the list uh sort of the agenda that we had last year and um I I saw climate change as Rock Bottom there and if I'm remembering correctly when we were talking about strategic planning part of it was emergency planning and it seems to me that those two sort of go hand in hand in a way I mean because we've got emergencies as a result in many cases of climate change and you know I I I fully acknowledge that it was not one of the things that was given a

16:11 top priority in our retreat but I hope that in this next Retreat will be giving it a little bit more consideration Corey and I think just and to build on what um Council stair was saying I think part of what we were talking about last year was wanting to see where the county landed with their climate action plan and see how we fit into that too so it's like how do we collaborate with our partners around yeah what's going on with that yeah does anyone know where we are with the county yeah they have the plan is finalized and now they're moving into like how we're going to implement that plan so it'd be worth it for us to take a peek at me and I think it's valuable here right that like the 2022 initiatives are just sort of to not look at a white piece of

16:56 paper right so we don't really have to have an you know iterate office we could iterate off of this or we could rearrange them or add things or move things all around it's really our opportunity to to have that have that discussion and kind of get to Collective like agreement about what our priorities should be and then I you know ideally like four to eight things that has really pointed it you know Nancy about like the importance the important stuff to get done all right so I'm going to reiterate this thing that part about well about both scheduling and timing um scheduling aha is going to put out a

17:43 doodle poll so that you know while we're all live streaming out here we don't have to go through what our personal calendars are and try to sort this out um it's probably gonna have a million different options on it I see AJ nodding over there going she's got to somehow figure out our calendar but that's really going to be the driver driver in this so that we don't have to we don't have to go back and forth um ideally I would love to get it done before we get into the budget season like into the you know into the budget into the budget meetings and I think it's really important and that we um that we all end up in the in the in the room right even though under state law we have to provide a link right a link really is for everybody else right like the difference between doing this successfully and not is really us

18:29 getting into a room and kind of diving into these topics yes and I did not think it was too long last year I was thinking back and I was trying to think like did it feel too long um so it didn't feel like it was too wrong for me but when I was in person it's a long day on a Saturday I guess yeah right it was my I want to be very I'm very sensitive to your time I think it was probably a different pacing if you were calling in versus if you were correct like you know if if you were there so I think that's you know worthwhile and I still from an agenda like

19:14 this is our that was the first time we really sat down and talked about it since probably 2015. um and so it's gonna feel a little clunky at first right this will be the first time that we all sit down and be like what's important right Joe from past experience that I've had with Council meetings or or I'm living home that I think really the I've had some really enjoyable Retreats with the council and I've had some that weren't close to that and I've learned from a big difference I noticed is that the answer is mentioned in earlier the best ones I saw was when we were in our

20:00 room in a room and didn't have distractions I I eat other folks um and it I think it did two things the best ones I went to is that that helped with comfort with everybody but I think it was also huge for um in a sense so cliche uh team building is the closeness of the council members was noticeably different the next week is because I think there were some very um unguarded safe talking people were were open and honest there was no fuzz or outdoor noise so to speak and at

20:45 least for me I'm speaking to myself that I think those meetings that we had that we had a room we had a very neutral uh mediator and Asthma mediator I guess that was an interesting started I think me but still that they become a facilitator and um there was there was food present which is always for the the the Primitive folks to improved nurse always cover in food you know I mean from an Italian family is at the meetings the best meetings occur in the kitchen you know so um there was there was food present there was Comfort there you know that type of thing and there was isolation from any outside stuff we were I think we're at I think investment i i attended was at the um you know was it

21:30 um not Sony but across from Sony there was a restaurant there at one point yeah in the background in the back and I think those meetings were really nice because it was a very neutral spot it was no governmental spot it was uh and people are able to talk openly and I think we even did a hiring of one of our city managers was conducted in that memory stud yeah to be clear at the other an event room in the back yes yeah yeah yeah it wasn't happy or in a restaurant in your bedroom and so I think that that's would be hugely important I think that this last one was a mix of mix of remote

22:15 slash in person I think totally destroyed the potential positive outcome I mean this did for me and I'm guilty I was remote I think I was in Arizona but I want to be definitely I want to be present and everybody I think it's best to be present and I think that's that's the first hurdle to get back into that so that's my two cents all right so look for the doodle poll we all are going to try to be there in person and we'll have a lively conversation right these conversations are usually really good okay um

23:00 I think we're going to enter until 6 30. yep so that's when cdet is going to kick off so I'm going to go into a journalize and then we're going to reconvene in this room on a different game for people at home for the seat of me thank you everybody like it's very easy yeah