Texas (KFDA) – Amarillo City Council held a strategic planning workshop Friday to discuss the city’s goals, priorities and future direction with the help of a consultant
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Public safety was among the highest priorities discussed, with council members outlining goals for the next five years.
Those goals included fully staffed police, fire and animal control departments, as well as a lower crime rate, improved enforcement and stronger leadership.
Council members said public safety and infrastructure are some of the highest priorities.
“Those are probably the highest priorities and they all happen at once,” said Tim Reid, council member for the city of Amarillo. “Our law enforcement, our fire, our ambulance can’t get to you if the infrastructure, the roads that take them there are all ripped up. So they all work together. But then we have to look at them separately because how we address their needs is a little bit different for each one of them.”
The workshop also addressed critical infrastructure projects and the need for clarity between what council wants and what staff needs as projects move forward.
Customer service and resident satisfaction were identified as additional high priorities.
Officials said the goal of the workshop was to define what success looks like for the city.
“There’s a lot of things that the city deals with every day, but I think what we want to get clarity on is what are those key things that are most important? What do we want to accomplish? And how do we know when we get there? So how do we measure when we’ve been successful,” said Les Simpson, council member for the city of Amarillo.
Officials said no formal direction was taken at the meeting, but noted the conversations could lead to policy changes and operational shifts.
“If it doesn’t, we’ve wasted our time,” said Reid. “There needs to be some change based on what we’re talking about. And whether it’s how we as council direct the city manager in what we want to see for the city, there may be policy changes that we have to make as we prioritize.”
Council directed staff and the consultant on priorities, ideas and expectations for the three main topics covered at the meeting.
Two additional topics, growth and quality of life, were raised but not discussed.
Council said more meetings will be held in the future.
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