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City manager outlines plan to strengthen maintenance, community engagement
Summary
City Manager Martin and Public Works Director outlined a 3-year work plan to prioritize maintenance of public spaces (asset management, SOPs, training) and to build a community engagement program including a listserv, quarterly communications and a Citizens' CRM portal.
City Manager Martin presented the Mill Creek City Council on March 25 with a work plan for two of the council's strategic priorities: clarifying and meeting standards for well-maintained outdoor public spaces, and increasing community engagement.
Martin said the city's goals include agreed standards of good repair, regulatory compliance, financial stewardship and better documentation of standard operating procedures. He said staff will implement an asset management (AM) and GIS system in 2025 to collect field data and generate work orders, with tablets for field crews and a citizens portal planned in later phases.
“We're actually going old school right now until we get those systems in place,” Martin said, describing a multi-year rollout of AM and a work-order interface to improve prioritization and response times.
Public Works Director Todd described operational projects that will support the plan: a citywide pipe-video and condition assessment, pavement preservation bundling for 2025–26, sidewalk assessments, a catch-basin repair list of roughly 700–800 items and an upcoming public-works facility assessment. Todd said the city has begun preparing consultant contracts and survey work to support larger projects such as Trillium and Silvercrest Drive.
On engagement, Martin said staff assembled a contact database of HOAs, property managers and businesses to support quarterly mass communications, seasonal outreach and project-specific engagement. He said the city will use its GovQA system initially for CRM and is evaluating more advanced options. “This is our gonna be our first attempt to execute, and then we could monitor this over time,” Martin said.
Councilors urged detail and usability. Council Member Steckler recommended content creation—regular stories, blogs and targeted outreach—to turn information into engagement. Mayor Pro Tem and others said council members can serve as channels to reach neighbors and businesses. Staff said they will follow up with a more specific plan for content and outreach techniques and will include KPIs to measure success.
No formal council action was taken at the session; staff said several items will return for future decisions, including contract awards for design and asset-management services and updates to SOPs and policy if required.
