Sunnyside City Council met for a strategic-planning workshop devoted to setting near- and long-term priorities tied to the city’s budget and operations, with council members repeatedly urging clearer goals, metrics and follow-through.

The session, led by Jim Bridges, who presented a planning memo and a set of suggested objectives, centered on reconciling community visioning with realistic budget constraints and restoring trust in municipal operations. “This is the start of a conversation,” Bridges said while opening the meeting.

Why it matters: Council members said the city has accumulated studies and plans that are not being implemented and that limited institutional knowledge and turnover among staff and elected officials have slowed progress. Councilors urged the creation of measurable work plans so the city can move beyond short-term crisis management and preserve or build reserves for aging infrastructure.

Most urgent facts: Participants identified core budget pressures — utility bonds and maintenance backlogs — and stressed the need to align planning with the preliminary budget. “We need a matrix. We need goals, and we need deliverables,” a council member said, pressing for priorities that survive turnover. Bridges told the council to prioritize basic municipal services first and treat additional projects as “wants” to be pursued only after basic needs are funded.

Key discussion points included using existing studies rather than commissioning new ones, involving advisory commissions in planning, improving onboarding and training for new council members and staff, and committing to annual updates of long-range water, sewer and capital plans so grants and loans can be pursued more effectively.

Council members also flagged procedural and cultural issues: unclear or outdated municipal code language, inconsistent follow-up on council directives, and the need for written internal standards for customer-service response times so resident requests do not “fester” into larger complaints.

What was not decided: The meeting was a workshop; council did not adopt ordinances or enact budgetary changes. Participants asked staff to identify priority items and return with specific options and timelines for the next session.

Next steps and outlook: Councilors asked for a follow-up session linked to the upcoming budget process so suggested priorities can be translated into draft budget language. Bridges asked members to mark which items they considered high priority so staff could prepare focused proposals.

Ending note: The council scheduled a brief executive session for the coming Monday, and chairs signaled they expect to continue the strategic-planning sequence during the budget cycle.