2024 City of Hastings Strategic Plan

Members of the Hastings City Council approved adopting the City's 2024 Strategic Plan on May 28, 2024. Adoption of the Strategic Plan comes after nearly a year of work.

The strategic plan is an ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document an organization's intended direction.

This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning. The strategic plan will assist city department heads in planning for future fiscal years.

The 2024 City of Hastings Strategic Plan includes updated vision and mission statements, plus directives that guide priorities for city departments and initiatives to help achieve those directives.

Vision

Hastings is the most welcoming & desirable place to live, visit, and invest, where all people enjoy a high quality of life in a sustainable and innovative community.

Mission Statement

Creating a community that people are proud to call home.

Directives

• Communication & Engagement
• Economic Development & Housing
• Performance & Innovation

Initiatives
Communication & Engagement

• Improve public perception of the city.
• Improve the effectiveness (efforts, availability, timeliness) of city communication with the public.
• Improve public involvement in decision making.

Economic Development & Housing

• Increase public satisfaction for overall development across the city.
• Increase public satisfaction for overall affordable housing options.
• Improve the experience developers have with the city.

Performance & Innovation

• Maintain quality of services provided to the public.
• Increase efficiencies through technology and other means.
• Improve quality of streets, flow of traffic and mobility.

What do each of the Strategic Plan sections mean?
Vision – The city’s long-term aspirations.
Mission – The city’s purpose and core values.
Directives – The city’s focus areas for the next 5 years.
Initiatives/Measures of Success – 1–3-year plan on how to accomplish the directives, including questions (benchmarks) from the community survey to evaluate progress and success.

Background
City Administrator Shawn Metcalf announced in June 2023 the strategic planning process to better understand community priorities. Appointment of Strategic Plan Advisory Committee members, as selected by the Hastings City Council, was approved by the Hastings City Council in August 2023. SPAC members held 17 focus groups throughout the community. The City also administered an annual community survey in fall 2023. SPAC members analyzed the data from the focus groups and community survey and provided a recommendation to City Council on the areas the community wants City Council to focus on. City Council and Department Heads met together with a consultant on April 13, 2024 to review the recommendations of SPAC and to perform their own strategic planning session. City Council validated the findings of SPAC and added some additional content.

Why should I care about the Strategic Plan?
Bottom Line: This plan matters because it clearly articulates what residents want city staff members to focus their collective efforts on. Making progress in the areas that matter most to residents significantly increases the reason why people love living, working, and playing in Hastings. These very reasons are why people are proud to call Hastings home.

How do I know residents want city staff to work on these ‘focus’ areas?
The Community Survey clearly articulates the area’s residents want us to focus on. The 17 community focus groups conducted by the Strategic Planning Advisory Committee confirmed what the Community Survey stated about priorities. There was a strong correlation between the results of both efforts. Lastly, City Council confirmed these sentiments through the adoption of the plan.

Has city staff already started working on the plan?
Yes, in anticipation of the plan being adopted, department heads established goals that are in alignment with the plan. The ideas they came up with, and associated costs, will be proposed to City Council for approval via the annual budget adoption. Once approved, city departments will make concerted efforts throughout the year to move the needle in these focus areas. A quarterly update will be provided to City Council so they can see what we’re working on.

What will we do in the near future?
The plan is not going to sit on a shelf and collect dust.
The City will share the plan with the community via social media, radio, newspaper, information sharing with our boards/commissions, community meetings, EngageHastings, etc.

Can the City realistically measure progress?
Yes! City departments will utilize specific Community Survey questions to measure progress annually.

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