According to this Farmington Independent article, Farmington’s mayor wants ‘less talk and more action’ in 2013. He felt that when the city talks of strategic planning they don’t accomplish any of the goals that are set so he plans to approach things differently to get things done except, well, it doesn’t make any sense.
From the article:
The city council meets annually to talk about goals and strategic planning for the city. And while they cover a lot of topics, Larson said, it seems like very little is accomplished to meet those goals every year.
“We talk and talk and talk, and two hours into it, we’ve talked about everything,” he said. “Everything gets talked about and nothing gets done.”
Instead of trying to cram every topic into a two- or three-hour goal-setting workshop, Larson wants to set up a series of workshops, each dedicated to one specific topic, and to spend two or three hours working through the details of each topic.
So instead of less talking and more action as the article’s title claims, the mayor is going to want to do MORE talking and theoretically more action, yet in reality, it’ll be the same output, if not less. What do you think about this one? Do you think more talking about strategic priorities will provide more action in the long run? Do you think that cities take strategic planning too seriously as it is especially when we have regional groups, like the Met Council, determining a lot of priorities anyway? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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January 4th, 2013 at 7:50 am
I think the real problem is that when they talk about everything in these workshops, it usually is about stuff they have no control over. One big topic in these cities these days is how to get more businesses to locate within the city limits. They talk about all these great ideas and concepts and create committees or create a newspaper ad to attract the businesses, when in reality there’s little they can do about it. Aside from some specific tax breaks or selling some city-owned property cheap, businesses are looking for the right facility, the right access, etc., and nothing the city does can change that.
Their goals are unrealistic, and therefore no action comes about. Stop living in a dream world, start living in reality.
January 4th, 2013 at 7:59 am
Time for a Visioning Consultant.
January 4th, 2013 at 9:16 am
But these past four years of talk by the Mayor and others has brought significant change to Farmington. They’ve gone from the Farmington Downtown Business Association, to Grow Farmington, through a “Shop Local” phase and now they’ve settled on the Farmington Business Association. Talk about progress!!
In addition, the mayor’s stated goal from his first term, the ability to buy socks in Farmington has been fulfilled. As he never said he wanted to buy new socks, that is still a strategic goal in progress, the ability to buy used socks in town is another big win for our town.
Clearly there is no need to mess around with action when one is experiencing this kind of success with talk.
January 5th, 2013 at 7:35 pm
I expect a mayor to be showing leadership, and not be the one complaining about the lack of leadership. Maybe he intends to show leadership now, I just have wonder what was wrong with doing so last year?