Politics & Government
Concord Embarks on Sixty-Nine Initiatives, Give or Take
City Council has strategy session to gather opinions on future efforts despite downsized staff.
The Concord City Council took a long look at the big picture Friday.
The council had a session Friday afternoon with no resolutions passed. The purpose, instead, was to talk about initiatives coming up in the city in the next fiscal year and beyond.
“We’re interested in more than just doing business as usual,” said Councilman Tim Grayson.
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The city is at a crossroads, after “two really difficult years of almost blunt-force reductions across departments,” said City Manager Dan Keen. That makes it “a great time for the council to be doing a strategic planning exercise … and make sure we’re on the right track with these initiatives.”
That’s sixty-nine initiatives.
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Keen and his staff circulated an 82-page document with 69 initiatives.
The Concord Patch Editorial Braintrust convened and decided it was counterproductive to list all 69 initiatives. The Braintrust said to empower the readers.
We’ll give a sampling of one initiative that came up for discussion, and then this link to Keen’s report. If you’re curious about any of those initiatives you find in that report, make a comment or question about it below and we’ll set off to track down more information.
The first numbered initiative is the city manager’s plan to relocate the Neighborhood Services Division to the third floor of the police department “to improve efficiency and fully integrate this activity into the department’s community policing efforts.”
Savings is estimated at $80,000 for the 2011-12 fiscal year, mostly from the elimination of a neighborhood services manager position, now vacant, Keen said.
“Saving 80,000 annually, that’s excellent,” commented Councilmember Dan Helix.
At the police department, a sergeant will oversee neighborhood services and help develop “team approaches to solving community problems,” said Police Chief Guy Swanger.
Two-way communication will be enhanced with neighborhood services staff giving tips about local criminal activity to officers, and officers reporting potential code-related issues they see in their work on the streets.
