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Camarillo council reviews FY 2025–26 draft strategic plan and asks staff to adjust project‑prioritization weights
Summary
The City Council reviewed a revised draft strategic plan and a new project‑prioritization matrix; staff proposed new goals including public safety and a weighted scoring system for capital/major projects. Councilors asked specific changes to prioritization weights and directed staff to rescore and return a final draft for adoption.
The Camarillo City Council reviewed the proposed fiscal year 2025–26 strategic plan and a new major‑project prioritization matrix and directed staff to incorporate several council suggestions, including creating a standalone public‑safety goal and adjusting weighting factors used to rank projects for the upcoming budget.
Assistant City Manager Carmen Nichols and Administrative Services management analyst Bobby Dame presented the draft plan and the prioritization methodology, which uses asset categories (facilities, water, wastewater, transportation, technology, housing and others) and ten prioritized factors (legal compliance, health/safety/security, asset condition/level of service, equitable community investment, sustainability/resiliency, funding availability, quality of life, project readiness, return on investment and identified need). Each factor carries a weight that varies by asset category; the steering committee of subject‑matter experts proposed the initial weights.
Council direction and reasons Council members supported the new public safety and emergency resilience goal and several suggested edits and additions to objectives and action strategies (for example, a Healthy Camarillo initiative and outreach to nonprofits). On the prioritization matrix, Council member Tremblay recommended raising the weight for health/safety/security in public‑safety assets and increasing legal‑compliance weightings for sanitary/storm drain projects and for water‑enterprise projects. He said, “public safety is… so incredibly important” and urged staff to reflect that in the scoring.
Staff response and next steps Bobby Dame said the model treats each weighted factor in an all‑or‑nothing fashion to reduce subjectivity, and that departments had provided written justifications for factor scores. Staff told council that changes to weights could require rescoring; they offered to rerun the matrix with the revised weights and return the updated rankings. The council and staff agreed to the principle that the scoring is a tool — not an absolute bar — and that “identified need” can be used to elevate projects the council considers essential despite a low technical score.
Other council proposals Council members proposed additional objectives and action items to be incorporated into the draft plan, including enhanced youth civic engagement programs, a community survey to measure quality‑of‑life outcomes, and strengthened intergovernmental advocacy related to the Camarillo Airport.
Final steps Staff will update the draft strategic plan to reflect the council’s edits, adjust the prioritization weights per direction, rescore projects where appropriate, and bring a final package back to council for formal adoption.
