Indio council reviews draft strategic plan; asks staff for edits and sets June adoption target

The Indio City Council and staff spent the bulk of a meeting workshop on an updated five‑year strategic plan, reviewing a draft that contains a revised mission statement, a new vision, three core values and six strategic focus areas.

Consultant Maddie (presentation lead) summarized engagement: the process included community forums, a social‑pinpoint site and interviews, with roughly 430 people contributing ideas and around 800 people reached by outreach.

Key changes and council direction

- Mission: Council members asked staff to include specific beneficiaries in the mission statement. The revised wording the council agreed to circulate in discussion was: "We provide outstanding public services to enhance the quality of life for residents, visitors and businesses in our community." Council members said listing these groups would make the statement more concrete.

- Public safety priority: Council members asked that "community safety" be reframed as "public safety" and be placed first among the strategic focus areas so police, fire, emergency medical services and emergency management receive priority attention.

- Infrastructure and sustainability: Council asked staff to add or emphasize "sustainability" in the public infrastructure goal to reflect climate resilience and long‑term maintenance considerations.

- Core values and organizational excellence: The draft included three core values — "Polite, Professional, Progressive" — with short definitions. Staff said the organizational excellence focus area is intended to make the plan usable by city employees as an internal work guide.

Council edits and next steps

Council members proposed multiple wording edits and asked staff to fold their changes into a revised draft. Consultant Maddie summarized next steps: "We will take all these thoughts that you have back. We'll create a new draft, and it'll come to you for final adoption in June," she said.

The council directed staff to incorporate the edits discussed during the session. No final adoption or ordinance occurred at the meeting; the plan will return for a formal council vote at a later meeting in June.

Ending

The consultant and staff will update the draft to reflect council feedback and return to the council for final action; staff also discussed publishing a one‑page summary for the public.