City makes progress in first year of Strategic Plan

At the July 24 City Council Work Session, staff presented the first annual report on the City of Eugene's 2023-2026 Strategic Plan. The report highlights staff efforts over the previous year to advance the plan's strategic goals.

Some highlights from the first year include:

• The formation of a new cross-departmental Public Space Team that coordinates timely, effective response and clean-up to community reports of debris or misuse of public spaces.
• With funding from the Community Payroll Safety Tax and utilizing a new alternative response model, a Lane County Behavioral Health professional is now embedded with downtown Police officers to provide important services to community members.
• City staff convened a new ongoing consortium of area homeless shelter operators to boost operational efficiency, share best practices and strategize funding options.
• Eugene Springfield Fire has increased community resilience to wildfires in the past year by creating a Wildfire Planning and Fuels Management Program and continuing to work with partner organizations to reduce fuel loads in and around Eugene.
• The Oregon Legislature awarded $6 million to Eugene for extension of infrastructure to the Crow Road/West 11^th area, supporting the eventual construction of approximately 1,200 housing units.
• The creation of a new downtown incident commander position that coordinates efforts from across the organization to focus on public safety and cleanliness downtown.
• A re-imagined business liaison staff position to serve as a first point of contact for businesses in Eugene that have questions, information needs or concerns.

The City's Strategic Plan was designed to position the organization to focus on issues identified by the community as top priorities and provides guidance for City programs and services. It was informed by the 2022 Community Survey, which gathered input from over 1,700 community members on a variety of issues and topics.

The annual report is organized around the strategic plan's four focus areas: Urgent Community Needs, Culture of Belonging, Communication and Outreach, and Organizational Wellbeing. Within these focus areas are 15 strategic goals and 44 high-impact actions that further organize and describe the work of the City to address community needs. The City's Strategic plan is fully integrated with many existing City plans and efforts, including the Housing and Implementation Pipeline, the Climate Action Plan 2.0 and efforts to implement the Community Safety Payroll Tax.