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April 21, 2010
Siskiyou Room
51 Winburn Way
CALL TO ORDER
Staff Member, Adam Hanks called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.
ROLL CALL
Committee members present: John Rinaldi, Jr., Bill Molnar, Sandra Slattery, Ron Fox, Jim Teece, and Larry Holtzgang.
Staff members present: Adam Hanks, Diana Shiplet.
VISION STATEMENT
The group reviewed the latest draft of the Vision Statement, after the Policy Group made their edits. The group would like to suggest removal of the third paragraph as it has no "measurable aspects" and is more of a values statement than a vision statement. The group would like to see a clearer reference to the importance of technology. Additionally, they would like a reference to Ashland being "business friendly" (especially if we are visioning for what we hope to see in Ashland.)
The group discussed whether this draft of the Vision Statement covers more than just Economic Development vision - are we leaning too much toward a city-wide vision (which should come through Council and not this process)? We need to remember to focus on those efforts/visions/actions related to economic development which the City government can take on and not those things which are related to city-wide visioning which must be taken on by the community as a whole.
The group also suggested that it might be nice to combine paragraphs one and two to remove the repetition so we remain focused.
DRAFT STRATEGIES, SORTED
Hanks explained the draft strategies are currently sorted based on the Policy Groups prioritization. He asked that the group rank, edit, simplify or remove the draft strategies. The group discussed that there are too many strategies - there should be no more than 3-5 strategies, which then have measurable actions or tactics in place to achieve those strategies. The group worried that the current list does not contain any strategies, but rather contains values or actions, which make ranking the currently list awkward. Group also discussed how many of the current "top fifteen" on the draft list are actually things which should be handled by our current boards and commissions as they are current needs of the community.
It was suggested that we need to be able to "draw a string" from the vision statement to each of the strategies. If they aren't in the vision statement, they shouldn't be strategies, they instead should be value statements, or moved into actions to achieve the strategies. The group acknowledged that all of the items listed on the Draft Strategies list are good items for
The group discussed how the long- term usefulness of the Economic Development Strategy timeline should be something like, Vision = 20 year, Strategies = 10 year (re-assessed every 5), and Actions = 1-3 years projects.
The group wondered if we are focusing too much on what we are today rather than what we want for the future of Ashland. Do we really want Ashland to be exactly the way it is today? Don't we want to use this as a way to strategically correct some of the weaknesses and threats identified in the S.W.O.T?
The group also worried about completely removing or deleting any of the draft strategies because everything is ultimately interconnected - we need to not lose these things which are important to the community (even if they aren't in the final list of strategies.)
Group would like to see added back in as either a strategy or action the idea brought up a while ago that we would like to encourage businesses in town, which have equal or greater employee levels than those of our current public sector jobs. (i.e. ACH, SOU, and City of
ADJOURNMENT
Meeting adjourned at 4:58 p.m.
Diana Shiplet, Executive Secretary