Agenda - Council - 08/13/2013 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Ramsey, Nowthen, St. Francis, Oak Grove, and Bethel, Minnesota Feasibility Study for Shared or Cooperative Fire and Emergency Services weeks, months, or even years of additional detailed planning work Involving stakeholders, operations staff, legal counsel, finance personnel, and others. As this actual implementation planning work moves forward, there may be several points at which new information or undefeatable obstacles arise that cause one or mare communities to decide not to finalize and implement the plan. The term "vision session" is used here because the policymakers will be determining their joint decision on a future vision toward which the additional work of implementation will be directed. In many cases, several legal, operational or functional strategies are presented as being feasible in the study. These may involve various options for governance, finance, and organizational structure. Which one or ones should the entities pursue, if any? This will become the joint vision of the policymakers. One of the best methods for initiating this vision process is to begin with policymakers sharing an open discussion of critical issues. Each entity representatives can present a short description of those critical issues, service gaps, or service redundancies that might be concerning them relative to their provision of public safety services. As each entity takes their turn presenting these issues, a picture typically emerges of those shared critical issues that two or more of the entities have in common. This assists in focusing the discussion on which of the feasible options from the study best address those critical common issues and how. As the discussion focuses on those feasible options with the greatest opportunity to positively impact shared critical issues, the discussion can expand to the strengths and weakness of the strategies relative to the concftions, financial abilities, and cultural attitudes of the communities involved. There should be a concerted effort to remain at a policy level without becoming overly embroiled in operational discussions of implementation details. Those will be addressed once a common vision has been established for a future strategy that is in the best interest of all the communities involved. This is also the time that communities may make the decision to opt out of further involvement. This may occur for a number of reasons. There may be legitimate concern that an individual community does not truly share an adequate number cif common critical issues with the other communities. There may also be a legitimate concern that the feasible strategies do not do enough to benefit a given community and would leave it with too many remaining critical issues. And, or course, there is always the possibility that a given community will not feel that the projected financial outcome is within their ability or provides a cost -benefit that is better than their current situation. Any such decisions by one or more communities should not be considered a discouraging factor, for that is the very purpose of the vision ■ 1.E rgrnry Srmcrs Consulting page 12.E