Progress on the City of Bartlesville Strategic Plan continues to move nearer to completion, with the project team finishing several workshop sessions recently aimed at identifying the City’s Vision, Mission, and Values.
The Strategic Plan got underway in late March, when meetings for the public, the City Council, and City employees were held to obtain ideas about the organization’s direction over the next three to five years.
In addition to the public meetings, an online survey was launched in April, drawing nearly 600 respondents over a two-week period.
The Strategic Plan Steering Committee, which consists of Mayor Dale Copeland, City Manager Mike Bailey and six City department directors, met with consultant Patrick Ibarra of the Mejorando Group over two days of workshop sessions in April and May.
“The workshop sessions have been very productive,” said Bailey. “Our work in recent weeks has included identifying the vision, mission, and values for the City, which, as you might imagine, spurred a lot of conversation within the group. We were able to do something we don’t normally get an opportunity to do, and that is to take an in-depth look at every facet of our operation, the services we provide, how we can be better, and what we want to be in the future as an organization.”
Bailey said the group settled on “A Leading Community by Choice” as the City’s vision because it encompassed sentiments the group kept coming back to, based on public input gathered previously.
“The power of a vision is to help Bartlesville realize it’s potential,” Bailey said, noting that the vision statement isn’t a description of detailed action steps but instead describes success in the future, which is arriving every day.
“We spent a lot of time talking about Bartlesville and what it means to the people who live, work, and play here,” Bailey said. “We received a lot of input from the community on this, and that input overwhelmingly told us that in general, Bartlesville residents are here because they want to be — because they choose to be. We felt it was important to represent that in the City’s mission.”
He said the leadership component was also based on feedback and the City’s goals for the future.
“We are a unique community. We have things that no other city has, especially cities our size. We are and always have been a leader in so many areas — the arts, public safety, municipal services and financial stability — these are all things we tend to take for granted, but they are significant, and it’s important to recognize that. The vision pays homage to that — our history, but also our future.”
Bailey said the group felt strongly that, as an organization, the City should play a larger role in community advocacy and helping to facilitate solutions for growing social issues that have not traditionally been the City’s role.
“Like every community across the nation, we are facing some serious challenges in which municipalities have historically not played much of a role,” he said. “Based on what the public told us they are most concerned about in this area, we believe it’s important that we, as City staff and leaders, lean more into our potential to help address some of these challenges. We have specifically targeted the lack of adequate child care and affordable housing, as well as increasing homelessness in our city as the top issues we believe we can play an active part in addressing.
“Between what we already do, which is to provide exceptional municipal services, and our intention to play a larger role in community issues that don’t necessarily specifically require City involvement, we arrived at our mission and values.”
Mission: Through collaboration, we provide exceptional public services and enhance the distinctive character of our community.
Integrity: Do the right thing; the rest will follow. We hold ourselves to the highest level of honesty, truthfulness and ethical conduct.
Community: We are both responsive and proactive in our efforts to help Bartlesville realize our potential.
Service: We are dedicated to providing effective and timely customer service with courtesy and respect in the most fiscally sound manner.
Teamwork: We collaborate on common goals for the greater good of our community.
Communication: We share information and ideas in a clear, open and timely manner.
Innovative: Ours is a “do things differently, do different things” mindset in our approach as community builders.
Bailey said the Vision, Mission, Values statements are still in draft form.
“None of this is set in stone, of course,” he said. “While it’s true that we are pretty deep into this process to make major changes, we always want to ensure that we are representing the community and our residents to the best of our ability. We’re looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks about what we’ve accomplished so far.”
Anyone who would like to provide feedback is invited to complete a form on the City’s website, www.cityofbartlesville.org. Feedback will be accepted until 5 p.m. on June 15.
The committee is set to meet again with Ibarra later this month to complete work on the plan’s “key result areas,” or possible strategic initiatives, as well as organizational goals and objectives. It will be the last workshop session before the City Council considers adoption of the plan in July.
To weigh in on the Strategic Plan Vision, Mission, Values before 5 p.m. June 15, see Bartlesville Next.