Collegedale commissioners, staff draft mission and vision at strategic planning workshop

Collegedale commissioners and city staff met in a workshop led by Hana Rogers of the Municipal Technical Advisory Service to draft a mission statement and a vision and to begin a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis that will inform the city’s budget and goals for the coming year.

Rogers told the group the planning work is intended to “communicate priorities” to staff and to make commission direction clearer as the city enters budget season. She led participants through examples and then had commissioners and trustees suggest wording, refine phrases and combine ideas into a single working mission and a draft vision.

During the workshop the group reviewed Census-based figures used to inform planning: a 2023 population estimate of 11,476 for Collegedale, a homeownership rate read as 43.5 percent, about 17 percent of residents age 65 or older, and educational attainment with roughly 40.7 percent holding bachelor’s degrees or higher. Rogers and participants discussed how local college enrollment, rental housing and retiree populations affect those statistics and planning priorities.

Commissioners and participants drafted the following working mission during the…