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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,January 5, 2015 Page 12 Ideally, City Manager Trudgeon advised that staff had hoped to use the infor- mation from the retreat as part of the 2016 budget process and lay that ground- work, with a target date before May of 2015 as that process was initiated. If the City Council wishes to pursue RFP's, Mr. Trudgeon advised that staff would work out the details, even though he was under the impression that individual Councilmembers were on board to pursue strategic planning. Mr. Trudgeon opined that he believed strategic planning efforts were critical to ensure accounta- bility of staff and transparency for taxpayers. While he anticipated some healthy and lively discussions in determining clearly defined priorities for the City, in ac- cordance with the guidance from existing community visioning documents, Mr. Trudgeon opined that it was important to determine them with clarity for future decision-making for all involved. Mr. Trudgeon noted that the community vision- ing documents were the product of previous strategic planning, but opined that a clear focus had been lacking over the last few years, indicated by a past list of 27 individual goals with none yet accomplished. While hearing a number of differing points of view on this effort and desired out- come, Mayor Roe opined that he was also hearing a lot of the same thing, indicat- ing that many of the views were similarly held. Councilmember McGehee concurred that the goals were close; and if this is the first effort, she was happy to go in the direction recommended by City Manager Trudgeon and Mayor Roe as detailed in the RCA, given her sense of urgency in getting this done as part of the budget process. Councilmember McGehee stated that her personal focus is more about how to carry forward overarching goals as defined by the community for all decision-making efforts versus a piece-meal way of making decisions. Councilmember Laliberte admitted that she was stuck on the term "strategic plan- ning,"but stated that she also didn't like the term"retreat." From her perspective, Councilmember Laliberte stated that he interest was in priority and goal setting rather than attempting to do planning or visioning all over again. Councilmember Laliberte stated that she was not trying to eliminate community feedback, and from her perspective, "strategic planning" seemed to indicate an entirely new pro- cess. Mayor Roe clarified that the retreat was intended as an opportunity to develop the strategy of this group of elected officials and their staff. Councilmember Willmus noted that while the City had two existing guiding doc- uments, when pursuing strategic planning and strategy, there still remained the flexibility on the part of elected officials to adjust the budget and its priorities un- til final adoption in December. In his ongoing review of budget priorities, Coun- cilmember Willmus stated that he would remain flexible until that final December meeting when the ultimate levy and budget are adopted. If this proposed process