qathet Regional District's board will consider adopting a strategic plan for the rest of its term.
At the August 2 committee of the whole meeting, directors heard a presentation from consultant Tracey Lorenson. According to a staff report, on February 7 and 8, regional board directors sequestered themselves, along with staff, to engage in a strategic planning session with the local government consultant. The staff report stated the intent and purpose of developing a strategic plan in local government is to provide a clear roadmap for achieving long-term goals and objectives.
Lorenson, at the committee meeting, said the regional board was impressive in the two-day workshop in terms of the diversity it brought to the decisions and clarity around what matters most. She said the draft she presented was intended to reflect the fact that the board is quite happy with the direction the regional district was going in, but there are some specific changes the board wanted to make.
“One of the things that is slightly different from last time is the recognition that you as a board wanted to be progressive,” said Lorenson. “The language around how you used that word in the workshop was around future focus, looking forward. Other than that, a lot of the language is very similar to the previous strategic plan.
“I want you to know there are values in this and there are also guiding principles that weave together to make the directional statements for you as a board."
Strategic priorities, as outlined in the draft report, are: organizational excellence, environment and climate, community connections and social supports. Quality of life is at the centre of each and every priority of the strategic plan, Lorenson outlined.
She said at the February workshop, sustainability principles were discussed, including the environment, the economy, culture and social sustainability.
“You, as a regional district, have recognized that social matters to you more than some other regional districts and that remained important in the discussions we had during the workshop,” said Lorenson. “You want your decisions to be sustainable as well as your region to be sustainable.”
In terms of advocacy, the regional district is recognized as having the ability to be heard on matters of importance, said Lorenson.
“That’s a real strength,” she added. “You’ve been relatively precise about where you use your advocacy leverage.”
Lorenson said in the area of advocacy, with housing, the regional district has recognized it can create an environment for the diversity of housing. Other areas of advocacy include road maintenance, ferries, cycling connectivity, internet connectivity and improvement districts.
City of Powell River director George Doubt said specific actions were missing from the strategic plan.
“If we look at this as a plan for the next three and a half years, I don’t see anything we can measure against,” said Doubt. “There is no specific list of goals that the board would like to achieve that we can look back on four years from now.”
City director Cindy Elliott said the plan needed to have a few strategic goals that were more specific.
“As an example, in environment, if we as a board decided we’d like to beef up our park acquisition in order to set aside more land for parks to mitigate climate change, that’s not in the plan,” said Elliott. “That’s a strategic goal we could make and it seems like we maybe haven't put those in yet.”
Lorenson said the strategic plan is still at the directional level. She said at the project level, that’s where the board indicates where priorities fit.
Chief administrative officer Al Radke said if adopted, the strategic plan will change on the basis of quarterly reports and the board will then see items starting to align with the new direction.
“Where you are going to see the biggest emphasis is coming up this fall,” said Radke. “Now that we have the direction, you’ll begin to see the projects that staff are going to recommend. We are already working on things that are going to fall into this plan.
“This gives us the vision and the direction the board wants to go in. We can now align work plans and projects to this.”
The committee carried a motion to recommend to the board that it adopt the 2023 to 2026 strategic plan.
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