Agenda - Council Work Session - 02/19/2013 - Strategic Planning

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Final Steps: Comp Plan Ramsey Final Report Grant No. 05 -1237 City of Ramsey Based on the experience of this project, when the Comp Plan is reviewed by the community three types of groups will emerge, each with a different set of concerns. The first, and probably the major one, will be individuals and neighborhood groups that will object to a particular proposed land use, transportation corridor, or city sewer and water which will directly impact their neighborhoods. This project has taught Ramsey that the City needs to be proactive about this possibility so that each of these neighborhood issues can be resolved using more collaborative decision - making This will mean writing invitations, publicizing them for the entire community (so that neighborhood "A" sees what neighborhood "B" is doing and draws some connections and also sees the city is being proactive) AND publishing the notes of those conversations. These neighborhood discussions will not only speed up the comp plan but also plant the seed of collaborative decision - making throughout the City. In the coming weeks Ramsey will explore the possibility of facilitating these local sessions. The final OST session generated some ideas for how to facilitate this including the Ramsey Resident which is mailed out to all households, the city web site, and the mass transit stop. One resident suggested moving the City's electronic sign from the Old City Hall site to a more convenient location near the City's new Municipal Center. There will also be larger comp plan issues that cross neighborhood lines, but fall under general areas of the comp plan (for example sewer and water). The City also needs to be proactive about these issues. Finally, there is the most difficult task of all -- integrating the metrics of the checklist, the results of the visioning sessions and the comp plan. Certainly the comp plan will generate enough discussion that it will provide a real window of opportunity to accomplish the kind of citizen involvement everyone envisioned at the end of the project. In the long run this "trio" of invitation types then becomes a template for future discussions. The City will have a process for dealing with neighborhood issues, task forces /groups working on larger issues such as Town Center and perhaps a third, visionary group.