Dayton City Council held a strategic planning session recently with council members and city staff meeting for six hours to start strategic planning process, discuss budget needs
Mayor Ben Baker and City Council Members Scott Beseler, Christina Kelly, Jessica Lovins, Joe Neary, Beth Nyman, and Jeff Volter all participated in the strategic planning session, which was moderated by Dayton City Administrator Jay Fossett.
Dayton City Administrator Jay Fossett facilitates SWOT analysis
In the morning session, Fossett outlined the strategic planning process, which identifies issues facing the City of Dayton, provides a realistic assessment of the city’s resources, creates goals to address these issues, develops strategies to achieve goals.
The benefits of strategic planning are that it promotes teamwork among stakeholders, allows the city to clearly define its vision, creates realistic goals consistent with the vision, identifies strategies to achieve goals, and ensures that city resources are used effectively by focusing on key priorities.
During the morning session, Fossett facilitated a “SWOT” analysis with the city council, which looked at the city’s strengths and weaknesses and its opportunities and threats. After finishing this analysis, the city council members evaluated and prioritized 30 different topics to focus on what the city council believes are the top priorities in the city.
Dayton City Council members prioritized projects, initiatives.
This information will be used by the city administration to develop the upcoming budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year and to create a vision, mission statement, and strategic goals for the city. These elements of the strategic plan will be developed, discussed, and drafted through future meetings between the city administration and city council.
Fossett also reviewed proposed ordinances that he and city staff are working on as well as upcoming projects and initiatives in the city.
In the afternoon session, the city council listened to presentations by City Clerk Donna Leger, Police Chief David Halfhill, Fire Chief Chris Adkins, Public Works Director Rick Lucas, Code Enforcement Director Cassie Patterson, Economic Development Director Robert Yoder.
These department directors made presentations about their departments and the operational and capital needs in each of these departments for the upcoming fiscal year.
