Community meetings scheduled as Shasta County encourages public perspectives for a strategic five-year plan
The county hired a consultant to facilitate the strategy planning process, which will include both public meetings and a survey to gauge the areas the county should be prioritizing when it comes to discretionary funds.
Earlier this month, Shasta County launched a survey that allows residents to provide their perspectives on county priorities. The results will help staff form a strategic five-year plan to help guide the use of county discretionary funds.
The decision to launch a strategic plan was sponsored by Shasta Supervisor Kevin Crye at the beginning of this year. Supervisors voted to approve members of an ad hoc committee that will help develop the draft strategic plan. That group includes Supervisors Matt Plummer and Allen Long, CEO David Rickert, Deputy CEO Erin Bertain and Auditor-Controller Nolda Short.
Plummer said his background is in strategic planning, and that he’s said since the beginning of his campaign for county supervisor that “the county needs to have measurable goals that [are] focused on and that [are] accountable to the public to achieve,” adding that the county’s budget and spending decisions should be tied to those goals.
“Without a clear direction of, ‘This is what we’re trying to achieve,’ you don’t know if you’re being successful,” he said. “You don’t know how to allocate your resources and make tradeoffs.”
Plummer said he wants the public to inform the county’s strategic goals so that their priorities can be represented, not just those of the board or county staff. Aside from the survey, in-person community meetings will be held starting next week at various locations across the county:
- Nov. 18 from 6 to 8 p.m., City of Shasta Lake at the Larry J. Farr Community Center
- Nov. 20 from 6 to 8 p.m., Redding at the Redding Veterans Hall
- Dec. 1 from 6 to 8 p.m., Anderson at the Frontier Senior Center
- Dec. 3 from 6 to 8 p.m., Burney/Fall River, location TBD
After putting out a Request for Proposals, the county chose local business leader Hope Seth as a consultant to lead the community engagement process of the strategic plan. She said the survey and community meetings that she’s facilitating are “about county leaders being able to understand what truly matters to the people who live, work and raise families here.”
“When we start thinking about making a five-year strategic plan, we really want to not just base it off assumptions, what leaders are thinking or assuming about residents, but we want to hear their real experiences,” she said.
As Shasta Scout has reported, the survey is estimated to take around 15-20 minutes, and it asks questions like how residents feel about different qualities about Shasta County and what areas the county should focus more on. Seth said about 850 people have filled out the survey so far, and it’s open until Nov. 30.
She added that the community meetings are meant to be fun and interactive so that community members can provide their input through an engaging activity. Plummer said in a press release that he would be attending the community meeting in his district, in Shasta Lake, and that participants in the meetings “may have to make decisions with real, play money.”
The strategic plan will specifically guide the use of the county’s discretionary funds, which Seth said is budgeted at only around $75 million to $80 million annually out of a total budget of around $600 million. Since the funds are relatively small compared to the rest of the county’s spending, the county wants the public to identify areas they should prioritize.
“Their voices are really going to guide some decisions around where the county chooses to invest some time and resources for long-term impact,” Seth said.
Plummer said Seth will make a presentation to the board on Dec. 16 about her findings from the survey and community meetings. He explained that once he and others on the county board approve about five overarching goals, the ad hoc will create working groups of county staff — and potentially members from outside organizations — to develop plans for each goal. He said this step will likely begin in the new year and continue into the spring.
Do you have information or a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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