 I am Regina Mahoney, the city manager at the city of Essex Junction, and this is the Junction City News. And this afternoon, I have Ashley Snellenberger with me. Ashley is the city's communications and strategic initiatives director. So thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. So, Ashley is leading a really exciting project at the city. It is the city's vision and strategic action plan. So we're gonna talk about that. So last Friday, the city launched this project. Can you tell our viewers what the city is doing? Yeah, so now that we are an independent city, the city council really wanted to develop a vision and strategic action plan to direct us for the next five years. This kind of came around with some of the previous projects that we have done in the past. In 2012, we did a really comprehensive community engagement project called Heart and Soul. And this project allowed us to develop really six core values. And the city council, while those are great and wonderful, and probably some of them are still relevant, they wanted to see if that's truly true. So part of this project was to look and see if those six core values were still relevant. It also gives us an opportunity to start developing some of our own priorities that we have. We've had a lot of asked since the city was developed as an independent city. And so now we're trying just to develop what our core values are going to look like through our vision and then develop what our really priorities are for the next five years. So our project is really broken down into two pieces. Like I said, the vision where we want to see what our core values are, address some trends and issues that might be in the community or the state or nationwide. And then imagine what our future of Essex Junction is gonna look like, whether that's the next five years, 10, 20 years. And then the second part is the strategic action plan. And that's really the nuts and bolts that what we're going to be doing in the city. It's also, we want this to be very realistic and we want this to also be achievable and measurable because we want to be able to define what our success is and see if we're actually achieving those objectives that we have set for ourselves. Awesome, that sounds great. And I know I personally have been very excited and looking forward to this project because there is an extensive list of really fantastic things that everybody wants to do. So this will really help us prioritize and figure out how, what are the right things to focus on first. Okay, so feedback is pretty important for this project. Can you tell us about the survey? Yeah, so I'll tell you a little bit about the survey. We started it off on October 6th, so we just launched it. It will go until October 27th. It is an opportunity for people to start giving us really a lot of feedback on the vision, but it's also about the future of Essex Junction and what that looks like. So this is the first opportunity for people to give some feedback. Feedback was something that was very important to the city council and so they wanted to make sure that they were reaching lots of different peoples, especially people who might not have traditionally participated in any of our city government, whether that's the committees or the city council or even just actively being part of the city government. So they really wanted to reach out to those people. They also want everybody to get excited and embrace this. And so they're really asking for lots and lots of community feedback. And so the survey is the first opportunity for them to do that. It is available on our project portal and we'll talk a little bit more about the project portal in a little bit, but it is basically the one-stop shop for everybody to find out information about the strategic plan. It is available through a direct link through our website, which is our sxjunction.org. It's under our news and initiatives section, but you can also find the link to the portal and the link to the survey obviously on the city's website, the city's Facebook page or our front porch forum posts that we're doing. We do have some paper copies that are available at the city office or at Brownell Library and you can pick those up and then if you get done filling them out, you can return them back to the city offices via mail or you can come into the city office and drop them in from eight to 4.30 when we're available or through our drop box. So there's lots of different opportunities to participate in the survey whether you wanna do that electronically or through paper. And then the great thing about this survey is through the project portal, we're giving people the opportunity to see some of that data live. So we'll begin to start bringing that data onto the project portal as we get a little bit closer to the cutoff date. We wanna have a good section of data to start displaying, but it's a way for us to showcase that data, be very transparent in the process and for people who might not have participated in the survey or participated in the process to see kind of what we're the direction that we're really going into. We'll also use that data on our think tank workshop which we'll talk a little bit more about, but this is an opportunity, I think it's one of the easier opportunities cause you can just sit down and fill it out. It takes about 10 to 20 minutes depending on how brief or re-boss you wanna be with your answers on the survey. But it's the initial survey, there'll be other opportunities for surveys for people to give feedback as well later on but we'll talk about that too later. Okay, awesome. And so for folks at home, we have been sort of flashing that survey link directly so you can get to that. And also just to point out, the Essex reporter is back in print edition and so if you've got the October print edition, the survey information is in there too in a half page section that talks about this project. Okay, awesome. So you mentioned the think tank workshop. Can you tell me a bit more about this event? It may not be obvious to folks what that means exactly. Yeah, so the think tank workshop is the first opportunity for us to get together and start talking as a group. So it'll be kind of like a focus group. It'll be broken into two days. The first day is Thursday, November the second. It's from eight to five PM and the second day is Saturday, November 4th and it is from nine AM to noon. It's gonna be at the Champlain Valley Expo, Blue Ribbon Pavilion. So people can have lots of room to spread out and communicate. The first day will be our facilitator, Future IQ, will be working through some of the survey data. We'll be looking at some of the future trends that is going on within the city and the state and nationwide. We'll be looking for some key drivers that those are the things that the cities really, they're standing out amongst the data that we're receiving. And then we'll try to break it down into what that vision is gonna look like. So there'll be opportunities for large group discussion and then small group discussion. And then after that think tank workshop will be doing a report that Future IQ will be producing for us about the information that came out of the think tank workshop. We'll also be having a follow-up survey for those who participated in it. We do have registration is open and available already because that's not too far away. The great thing about it is you can register for one day, you can register for two days. You don't have to attend both days. I know it's a big contribution for three hours of somebody's time to come out. And so we want people to be able to choose to come to both or to just to come to one. The more feedback that we get is what we're really looking for on this. And so we really, they can register, get the registration link on the portal. It is available there. We'll also be doing some more promotional round, the think tank obviously in our website, the Facebook page and front porch forum. And then at the event that you can't register online, I would be happy to register anybody. So you can call the main office and myself or one of the city clerks would be happy to take your information and register for this think tank event. And it should be a really great opportunity for us to just really dive in and start discussing some of those big topic items. Okay, great. Okay, so outside of that, we talked about a survey and we talked about the think tank workshop that will be November 2nd and November 4th. What are some of the other activities that community members can participate in? So we have tried to create a lot of different opportunities because we know people are busy and we want obviously as much feedback as we can possibly get. So the next big one that's not really a big sit down and get conversation is the pumpkin plaza that Essex Junction Recreation and Park is doing on October 28th. We are gonna have a booth there and we'll have some candy for all the trick or treaters that are coming through and for everybody to come and look at the giant pumpkin tower that EJRP is putting on. We're gonna do some quick questions that night, just trying to get some key phrases or some key future ideas for the community there. So that'll be a lot of fun for people to come out for that event and to give us some feedback as well. And we're excited to participate in that event this year. As I mentioned earlier, there's a post think, take workshop that will be for everybody to fill out after that event. Then the next big event starts in December and so we'll have the train hop that EJRP always puts on every year. We will be a train stop on the train conductor list and so we'll also have another opportunity for people to give feedback at that event as well. We don't know what that'll look like for sure yet but it'll be similar to whatever we do for the next workshop, which is the next day December 9th. We have the date scheduled but we don't have times or location yet so that's to be determined. But we wanted to go ahead and get that date out for people to put on your calendar as another big workshop engagement opportunity, another big focus group opportunity. And then the last opportunity, we will have some more focus groups in January and February to conclude our feedback session. Obviously, we have a lot of opportunities and we want to get as much feedback as we possibly can and we're hoping that people can either attend one or more of these activities that we have coming up. Awesome. Okay, so that's really great and awesome, especially for the pumpkin, palooza and train hop because those are pretty great events and it's awesome that we'll be able to sort of go where the people are going anyway to try to get some input there. So that's great. So how will the project conclude if there's anything to add beyond the focus groups? Yeah, so the project is on going now until February 2024 and it will end with our consultant group, Future IQ who's doing this facilitation process for us and working with us on this project. They will provide a strategic action plan to the city council. On top of that, they'll be also doing multiple reports throughout the strategic planning process. So those will be available on our portal for people to view but this will be the grand finale project. So it'll be the project that we are presenting not only to the city council but to staff in the community. We hope that this plan will be a living document. That is the goal of it. It's something that we want to have constantly updated every year, whether it may be multiple times a year that we're producing out to the community and it's gonna be throughout the five years that we'll be constantly updating this document. So it's not a document that once the strategic plan is done we're done with it. This is really our roadmap moving forward and we'll direct the council and staff on projects, initiatives and the budget items for the next five years. And so we hope that this roadmap will be very transparent and allow residents to see really what our priorities are and how we're going to accomplish the priorities over the next five years and how we're gonna use those priorities to develop the budget or develop some of the other actionable items whether that's sidewalks or building and other projects that we have and where are those priorities that are at? So by February 24th, we are February 2024 We will have that plan to provide to everybody and we'll be able to really start moving and start working on the project after that. Awesome, that sounds great. So that was a super helpful description of what this sort of deliverable will be at the end. So just want to make a point for folks who may or may not be familiar. So most municipalities have what's called a comprehensive plan. They're called different things in different places. Sometimes they're called master plans. But those are the plans that are very, very big, broad. They are done every eight years in the state of Vermont. This, as a conjunction's last comprehensive plan was done in 2019 and so we will redo that when that eight year time clock is up. This is intended to be much more sort of actionable on the ground and as Ashley mentioned, really help think through annual work plans for the committees, for the departments and that will help kind of keep everybody prioritized and focused, which is great. Okay, so where can people find more information about the project? So as I mentioned earlier, the project portal is our main go-to area. It is where we want to encourage everybody to go. The project portal will be everything strategic plan. We have an overview of the project on there. We have information on the survey, how to take it. We have an overview of what that looks like in the future. That will be where all the data from the survey will be hosted so people can go on there and review the data that we have from the surveys. It will also be information about the think tank and how to register and then the report from the think tank will be loaded onto that once it's complete. If residents want to get or receive an email about the project, whenever we have updates about things going on, there's a way for them to sign up on the project portal for that project. And then if they just want to learn about all the different variable ways that they can engage with us during this time, it's all going to be on the portal. We do know that some people, that's not their direct way to get information so we will obviously be putting more information out in the Essex Reporter as time comes through. We'll also be putting things on our Facebook page, front porch forum and our website. And then obviously we have some great steering committee members, I didn't mention those. We do have a steering committee for this project and they are very active and involved. It's members from our city council and some of our boards and other committees that we have and then some of our staff members that are on that committee. And they have been working hard and are starting to get out about in the community and really try to get information out about this. So if you have a group or an organization and would like us to come and talk to you about our strategic plan, we'd be happy to do that. We also will have obviously, like I said, things on our website and then I am, like Regina said, the project lead. So if you have any questions or concerns about the project, I am your contact person for the project and I will be the person that everybody will need to contact for that. So. Awesome. Okay, excellent. So there again, that's the project portal website and also Ashley's email address. So that's a bit of a long URL. So again, if you go to EssexJunction.org and under the news and initiatives, there's a link right to that project page and so you really can continue to keep checking in there and find all the information that you need. Okay, is there anything else that you would like to add? I just wanna say that this is an opportunity for really for people to give their feedback. We don't have a lot of, we haven't had it in the past, in the near past I should say, a lot of opportunities for people to provide their feedback. We've had a lot of, so now that we're officially a city, we're trying to kind of develop those projects and priorities and we really want the community to participate in this. So please take the survey and register for the think tank workshop and this project again, we'll be going through now until February 24th or 2024, I keep saying that, February 2024. So please be on the lookout for more information about this project and opportunities for you to participate in many of our engagement opportunities. Awesome, and then just to reiterate the think tank workshop RSVPing is really appreciated, not necessary. If you wanna come, we won't turn you away but RSVPing will be really helpful to make sure we can properly plan for it and that will be Thursday, November 2nd from five to 8 p.m. And then Saturday, November 4th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Champlain Valley Expo. Okay, so just a few other things to let folks know about. So we actually talked about this one. The Essex Junction Recreation and Parks will host the Pumpkin Palooza on Saturday, October 28th from four to 8 p.m. There is, as you saw here in the presentation, a really fun jack-o'-lantern stage, campy mist, and a trick-or-treat trail through the Maple Street Park. So it will be awesome and hope folks can join us. Also, the library, Brownell Library is having a costume swap. So now through October 20th, stop by at the used desk anytime and to drop off your costume pieces that you're willing to part with and then you can come back and select a new to you costume which is really awesome. The swap is October 21st from 9 a.m. to 4.30 to pick up your new costume. All right, so I think that's probably it. Again, filling out the survey. We really, really appreciate that. There are both some quick answers that you can answer in the survey as well as longer questions that if you'd like to comment on, you can do that. But if you want to even just go in and do some of the very basic just, they're not quite, multiple choice answers, but pretty quick answers. And there's also a good amount of information that we're asking about folks, where you live in the city, do you rent or own, and do you live or you work in the city? And really what we're just trying to do with those questions is make sure we're getting really good, robust feedback, diverse feedback from a variety of different sections of the city and folks who live or work in the city. All right, anything else? That's it, just take the survey and we are very excited to see what the outcome of this will be. And we're very excited to have a direction moving forward. I think it'll be good not only for staff and the council, but also for the community to kind of get an idea about the direction that we need to go into as a city. And this is your opportunity to tell us what you think. Awesome, perfect. Okay, thanks so much. Thank you. We'll see you next time.