Please read Aren’t we lucky? before you read this post so that you are up to speed.
The outside facilitator interviewed the “STRATEGIC THINKERS” and asked questions relating to eight areas. The published document lists the results.
The agenda appears early in the document
The most common answer to the question “What should we SUSTAIN” about city government was “City Manager form of government”.
This gives us insight as to what the agenda was here. No mention was made of El Paso being the safest major city in the nation thanks in part to our police department. Similarly our low fire insurance costs were not mentioned.
They aren’t through with our checkbooks
The question “What should we CHANGE?” asked about city wide (not city government) weaknesses. Only three of our 17 strategic thinkers mentioned “Growing tax burden”.
When asked “What should we CHANGE?”relating to the actual city government seven of our “STRATEGIC THINKERS” responded “Disrespecting / scrutinizing staff in public” while two of them thought we “Need to balance progressive tone with financial impact on the City”. Do you think?
Forget the law
When addressing potential threats to their agenda the question “What should we AVOID?” was asked, “Legal not supporting innovation or creativity” ranked in the top answers.
When the avoid question was asked about city government, “Not appreciating the VALUE game” was one of the answers.
Game?
Our city government is a game?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I’ve just started reading the Strategic Thinking/Planning document. Thanks for bringing this up.
It looks to me like a team building exercise. That’s something most councils or groups do when they are newly formed. The document produced is often less important than the process of “team building.” Most people I know who have been involved in these types of exercises see them as expensive, often useless exercises. The only possible benefit would be to foster respect among council members, and council does need that.
The document gives insight into the thinking. So far what bothers me the most is under the City of EP Value Proposition Profile (p. 18), Taxpayer/Community, last section entitled Citizens Engaging in Future of Their Community — only 4 of 17 “strategic thinkers” think the “majority opinion drives strategic direction and priorities.” So only 4 think the opinion of the community should set priorities? That stinks.
My other question now is where was Ms. Limon? I don’t see her listed as a participant. All other city reps were there.
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Honey child, this ain’t no democracy. Welcome to the plantation on the river. Our massuhs knows best.
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“Legal not supporting innovation or creativity” is a code phrase for wanting to find ways to do things that are illegal, unethical, or at best, questionable. They think that if the legal team will bless their actions, then they cannot be prosecuted. They want the legal eagles to get on board and let them do whatever they want…things like hiding communications between city officials and people who want the taxpayers to pay for ballparks. I wonder if Sylvia Firth was in attendance during that part of the discussion, and if so her response to that line of thought.
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Interpreter; I worked with Legal and they are obstacles to most everything unless you want a way to bypass the voters on a venue project. They will stop perfectly legal and legitimate actions because they did not research it or they want to cover their butts.
When Joe Wardy became mayor, the first thing he did was to clean out Legal to break the logjam on city business. I did not understand it then, being new, but I do now.
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Limon was getting an eyelid lift – plastic surgery. Guess that was more important than team building. Since most all plastic surgery is elective she could have re-scheduled the procedure.
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WARNING: LONG COMMENTARY FOLLOWS. I’ve been reading too much of Martin’s blog.
Having done a few such strategic plans (SP) in my career and even having taught SP in a grad school (my quals), I agree with the observation that this is more of a team building exercise to get everyone on the same page; “plain vanilla” and so inside-the-box that not much will change as a result of it. Really, it was naval-gazing unless you count the goals as initiatives. If a SP doesn’t offend someone, it’s not a good plan. Effective strategy usually involves trade-offs or not much changes. Also, there has to be a budget, people, tasks and timeframe attached to initiatives (goals?) or they will flounder, the reason why most SPs end up on someone’s shelf. SP is almost a waste of time in a government entity that is largely driven by laws and politics and is too diffuse to manage. The problem is, the town is politically unraveling as a result of all its legacy baggage and this SP ignores that reality.
That said, I would make several suggestions for improvement, what I used to do with my students who embarked upon a simulated SP exercise. These exercises, BTW, are VERY difficult, wherein lies their value. First, start by asking yourselves to describe the “story” you are living in. What story is El Paso living out now and, really, can it be changed if it is dysfunctional? Are we living Oz the Great and Powerful (Chicago in the Boss Daley era), The Bridge, Hunger Games, The Matrix? And who are the actors? You can’t change your story until you can tell it, as everyone who has ever been in a 12-step recovery program knows. Sometimes multiple stories compete for dominance: Margin Call versus Bless Me, Ultima.
Second, identify what are the driving forces and ask if you can credibly do anything about them? I have always seen El Paso as not in control of its destiny because the Federal Government by way of defense policy (BRAC) and foreign policy (NAFTA and currency) is the largest single influence here. So is Mexican culture for better and worse. So are political currents in the voter base. Can these be named? Can my assumptions be deconstructed? That’s what you have to do. There are drivers you can exercise some control over – land use, technology infrastructure, healthcare – but are they strong enough to make a difference? You have to identify and sort out the conflicting agendas that will scuttle any plan and have a script to deal with them; your degrees of freedom to act, the levers you can pull. The Serenity Prayer is a good tool on this topic
Third, their SP shows no understanding at all of the city as a demographic and cultural entity (remember Richard Florida saying we needed more yuppies). El Paso is not monolithic and there are “sub-cities” here each having its own identity and potential. I tell my students to think of the questions and topics that cannot be spoken in their organization, the 800lb gorillas everyone pretends not to see. These are the real levers of change. Did anyone in that room have the cajones to say, “The voters do not trust us anymore and there are several present here who helped to bring that about.” I wonder what kind of direct conversation that would elicit and where it might lead as far as new goals and initiatives? Instead we see number #1 strength: city manager form of government. Was there a candid discussion of why and what alternatives (beside strong mayor) might exist to a CM format or was this a given? A good SP is skeptical of “givens” and constantly questions them, because “givens’ keep us locked into where we are.
And how about city government’s culture and capabilities (I will have more to say about that later). The CC gets the story that the CM and her suits tell them and has little knowledge of what is really happening in city hall. There are huge discontinuities in city government that are never discussed at a level where something can be done about them. It is given (yep) in city hall that you never throw your colleagues under the bus, especially in front of a DCM or the CM. As a result, problems persist because they are never discussed in the presence of someone who can actually do something about them. They are more concerned about fixing the blame rather than fixing the problem. I doubt that was a topic of the group’s conversation.
I could go on all day…
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totally agree
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