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Council asks staff to refresh mission and bring sample strategic plans before wider public outreach
Summary
City Manager Tim Keys outlined options for updating Grass Valley’s strategic plan. Council members favored starting with a concise review of the mission, vision and values and asked staff to return with sample plans and a public-engagement approach before a broader update.
The Grass Valley City Council directed staff to prepare a targeted refresh of the city’s strategic plan beginning with the mission, vision and values and to return with several sample strategic-plan formats and recommendations for public outreach.
City Manager Tim Keys said the existing strategic plan, adopted and updated since 2018, serves as a roadmap for staff and asked the council whether to commission a full rewrite, use a facilitator, or make a narrower update focused on goals and priorities. Keys said staff favors a stepped approach: confirm mission/vision/values, then either seek public input through workshops and outreach or use a facilitator to refine priorities with council.
Why it matters: the strategic plan guides budgeting and project selection across city services, from public safety and infrastructure to downtown economic development. Several public speakers urged the council to emphasize energy, climate resilience and wildfire hardening in the plan. Don Ravines (Grass Valley Energy Action Plan working group) asked the council to prioritize meeting state energy goals, including electrification of new buildings and battery storage planning. Several speakers endorsed strong public outreach and measurable, time-limited goals.
Council members expressed broad agreement on an incremental process. Several said the mission, vision and values (as printed in the agenda packet) remain serviceable and can be streamlined; others asked staff to present a concise set of alternative plan formats for review. Council members stressed the importance of broad outreach beyond traditional stakeholder groups and suggested multiple meeting formats and channels, such as off-site town-hall sessions, surveys, and targeted outreach to groups that do not typically attend city meetings.
Keys said staff will assemble sample strategic plans from comparable cities and bring back options, along with recommended engagement methods and a proposed schedule. Council members requested that staff ensure public-noticing rules are observed so the Brown Act is not violated and asked for summaries of any stakeholder meetings so council members who do not attend can review the results.
What happens next: staff will return with the current mission/vision/values for council review, a short list of sample strategic-plan templates, and a recommended public-engagement process and timeline. Council signaled support for a two-year planning cadence with quarterly progress reporting on measurable goals.
