WORTHINGTON -- As of Friday, the city of Worthington has completed the citizen input portion of its strategic planning process and will now turn its efforts inward to the thoughts of city staff and councilmen.
Richard Fursman of Global Synergy Group, the Maplewood-based firm hired to guide the planning process, presented to about 30 Worthington citizens and community leaders during a focus group Friday at Minnesota West.
He reviewed the results of an online survey, which 754 people had completed as of Friday afternoon. It asked about everything from quality of roads to housing and educational options to Worthington's overall reputation.
Among the long list of findings: roughly 75 percent of those surveyed rated Worthington as a "good" or "excellent" place to live.
The city fared worse in variety of housing options, which 70 percent of respondents rated as "fair" to "poor," and in jobs and retail growth, which the majority rated as slow.
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A majority of folks thought opportunities for social activity and education in the community were good to excellent, and 77 percent said they were likely or somewhat likely to remain in Worthington for the next five years.
Following the presentation, the focus group broke into smaller groups where they worked to identify problems and solutions within the areas of economic development, city services, amenities and diversity.
"The idea is to get the average citizen's perspective and (the perspective of) the people with special areas of interest in the community," explained GSG's Irina Fursman. She said the focus group consisted of about eight community leaders, who had been invited because they represented specialized viewpoints, and the rest were chosen at random from among those survey participants who indicated a willingness to be part of a focus group.
GSG staff had earlier completed individual citizen interviews as well.
"They've got some good insight, from what they tell me, from the interviews," said City Administrator Craig Clark. Now, the council is tasked with reviewing the findings of all three citizen-based phases of the project.
"We'll be taking that data and trying to hone in on it so that we're prepared for the council staff retreat on Nov. 20 and 21," Clark said. "That's when we start outlining the points that will be part of the strategic plan."
Clark said council members had concerns in the beginning that the planning process would "press pause" on its ability to deal with current issues. They've learned "it can still be a dual track kind of thing," Clark said. "If we need to move forward, move forward, but at the same time advance the strategic planning process for the long term goals."
He also said the process may also have given the citizens involved a better appreciation of the governmental process.
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"The foundation were working off of is that a lot of times an individual might have a perspective or pointed opinion on a topic, but when they have to express that to their peers, it kind of puts it in a different perspective; they have to realize that they're part of a broader community. If you want a councilman to do x, y, or z, there's another constituent that has a different opinion," he said. "It's kind of Democracy 101."
Following the retreat, the plan will be written in its final form late this month.
The strategic planning process, which will cost nearly $10,000 to complete, was approved by the city council at its Aug. 10 meeting in hopes of establishing council priorities and an overall vision for the community.
