City Council Preview – What’s on the Agenda for the January 24 Workshop Meeting?

It’s a moment all the local policy wonks have been waiting for… the initiation of the process to come up with the next version of the Strategic Plan. As discussed this week, a lot (and we do mean A LOT) has changed since the previous version of the Strategic Plan was hacked out by council in 2019, so this is probably going to be an even more interesting process than before. Shall we begin…

NOTE #1: Since this meeting is a workshop there are no delegation opportunities at these meetings.

NOTE #2: In addition to appearing in-person, this meeting will also be live-streamed on the City of Guelph’s website here.

NOTE #3: This meeting starts at 6 pm after the regular council meeting of the month beginning at 4:30 pm.

Strategic Plan Refresh: Workshop with City Council #1 – After this week’s workshop reviewing the development of the first Strategic Plan, council will use this workshop to begin the development of the updated Strategic Plan that will guide their work for the next four years, 2024-2027.

The “refresh journey” (as the council report describes it) has eight phases that will unfold over the course of the next year, and we’re currently in phase one which means defining Guelph’s current state, confirming outstanding City commitments, and identifying key external trends and issues. Part of this is individual interviews with council members, which are still in progress so those notes will be included in the amended agenda posted next Friday.

In this workshop, council will validate and update the initial draft strategic objectives to reflect council’s priorities and direction for 2024-202; review the current strategic pillars and their accompanying goal statements regarding its continued resonance; and reaffirm the importance of the strategic plan, Council’s role in the process, and how the strategic plan ties into the City’s multi-year budget planning. The meat of this meeting will be an exercise around the City’s S.W.O.T., which stands for strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats .

The results of this workshop will go into further development of the plan and the next Strategic Plan workshop has already been scheduled for February 22.