City of Powell River’s 2023 to 2026 strategic plan is a work in progress.
At the July 11 committee of the whole meeting, interim chief administrative officer (CAO) Tom Day presented a draft of the plan and wanted to obtain direction to move toward its approval.
“Staff have been working on translating a rough generic document into something that resembles council’s discussions from a good number of months ago,” said Day. “It is generic and needs additional input in order for it to be effective.
“We’ve also talked about a key tool for that being the information that the annual report requires, that council identifies measurable goals and objectives. That component in itself could form part of the plan or form a subsequent document to that plan so we could get the specifics in there, the measurable components of that.”
Day said he was looking at receiving input from city council on the general plan that is presented and for any input councillors wished to add, and any direction they want to provide regarding the more specific exercise of goals and objectives.
Councillor Rob Southcott said he’d like to see something that aims toward considerations of climate in the plan.
Councillor Jim Palm said he agreed with staff that some specific goals and objectives were required. He said he’d like to see reference to community vibrancy to specify the addition of more activity for youth. Under economic resiliency he’d like to see something along the lines of growth of the industrial tax base.
Councillor Earl Almeida said he agreed on some measurables being necessary. He said there has been discussion by councillors regarding housing and that there is no reference to how close the city is getting toward housing assessment or a housing authority.
Councillor George Doubt said the plan is open-ended. He said council could look back in 2026 and discover nothing had really changed and there were no specific actions. He said he hears the CAO saying that, and what is needed is some specific actions.
“We haven’t sat down with council altogether and taken a look at prioritizing the actions we want,” said Doubt. “I talked a couple of weeks ago about a page and a half of things I think should be in the strategic plan. They deserve a place in the strategic plan, but only if council can agree, at least in a majority, that these are some things council should try to achieve.”
Doubt said that could be done in a focused workshop.
“We need to book some time,” added Doubt. “We owe it to the residents of the city to spend some time getting together on important actions.”
Mayor Ron Woznow said his understanding is that council will sit down in a session and work through issues.
Councillor and committee chair Trina Isakson said her main issue is that there is nothing measurable in the draft strategic plan.
“[The strategic plan] doesn’t represent this council’s hopes and goals,” said Isakson. “We ran for council for reasons and were elected by the public for reasons. I hope some of the things I would like the city to achieve get adopted by a majority or consensus of council.”
Day said with previous councils he has worked with, he has conducted workshops that reverse-engineer a strategic plan, going through a process where each member of council gets to put their ideas forward. Then, council goes through an exercise on how it is going to achieve that.
He said the workshops are held in camera. Councillors can roll up their sleeves and have some serious conversations, he added.
“I’m hearing that council wants to do that,” said Day. “I’ll try to schedule that and we’ll spend a day.”
