Council Visioning Deserved an Audience

In a recent post we discussed the conditions that can lead a council to abandon its strategic priorities. That post indicated that some of those conditions have improved in Geneva. But we also know that, in the past, city council didn’t do much in the way of establishing any strategic priorities. It looks like that situation is being remedied if Monday night’s council meeting was any indication of things to come.

The council spent over two hours discussing the strengths, challenges and unrealized opportunities in the city. They spoke about their hopes for Geneva in the long term (5 to 10 years) and set ‘strategic imperatives’ to guide their decision-making, including budgeting, in the short term. All of this was facilitated by City Manager Matt Horn, with the Comptroller, Personnel Director, and City Planner present as well.

Several weeks ago, Horn had presented each councilor with a worksheet on which they were each expected to provide their candid insights. He then put the responses together, without identifying the author of each, to guide the Monday night discussion. The majority of councilors (and the Mayor) completed the assignment and the responses reflected an honest and sincere approach to the questions.

The discussion that followed was aimed at bringing the council together in defining the city’s mission and clarifying the vision of Geneva as a community. While City Manager Horn served as facilitator, he also allowed himself to be drawn into the conversation and participated in a meaningful way. The end product was a council agreement to four key ‘strategic initiatives’ that will shape Horn’s development of the budget document and will guide the remaining community conversations on the topic of how we spend our resources. While the exact wording of each initiative is yet to be fine-tuned, the four areas of focus are: Value for the Tax Dollar; Neighborhood Enhancement; Engaged Governance; and Economic Development.

We agree that these four areas cover most of the activities that a city could undertake to serve its residents to the best of its ability (we say ‘most’ because maybe there are some that haven’t occurred to us yet that might not, but we can’t think of any at the moment). Getting value for taxes paid takes the focus off of the numbers (remember last year’s claim that there was no tax increase despite the fact that most people experienced at least a 7% increase due to their assessments?) and onto the way the money is being spent to serve people. Enhancing Neighborhoods catches issues of property maintenance, safety, recreation and initiatives like community organizing and planning. Economic Development might seem like an old term in Geneva, but we hope this will be a new incarnation of it, less about tax breaks and landing industrial projects (strategies that have proven largely ineffective in the Upstate economy) and more about developing and supporting small businesses and innovative enterprise ideas consistent with the community’s vision of itself. To put it another way, we’re looking for mindful economic enhancement and job creation, not just catch-as-catch-can government-funded projects. Lastly, it makes sense that City Council would include a self-reflective initiative in its budget document. After all, the buck stops with the Council, so it should not be immune to describing its own commitment to making Geneva great(er). When asked by Councilor Cosentino to explain what council should be doing differently, many Councilors offered ideas. Councilor Valentino explained that he would like to see everyone “roll up their sleeves” and get into more in depth discussions about issues. He pointed out that not every councilor can be a specialist in every area of city government, which seems to open the door to reconsidering a committee structure, similar to other local governments in the area. Councilor Augustine suggested more frequent ward meetings and other means of outreaching to constituents, more worksessions to allow Council to consider complex issues that are not well-suited to long once-a-month business meetings. Councilor D’Amico said it means doing more than just showing up for meetings, it’s a commitment to keep generating ideas and doing research in between meetings.

All in all, what happened in the City Council chambers Monday night was an example of ‘engaged governance.’ It was a meeting with discussion, debate, disagreement, and yet decisions were still made. This is not to say that the rest of Council’s term is sure to be tulips and smiles, but it showed that the new Mayor’s commitment to collaboration is an attainable goal, especially with a city manager who’s committed to, and clearly skilled at, driving a good decision-making process.