Cotati council refines strategic plan priorities; asks staff to split finance and livability goals

The Cotati City Council on Wednesday advanced a revised strategic planning framework and directed staff to return with a condensed, one‑page strategic plan and updated departmental workplans for the next two fiscal years.

City Manager Damien (first name only in the record) walked councilmembers through a draft vision, a proposed mission — “building a vibrant and sustainable city for current and future residents, businesses and visitors” — and a set of goals and prioritized department projects. Council members agreed the mission is a useful, staff‑level guide but asked staff to tweak the vision wording from “become” to a future tense such as “will be.”

The council focused most of its edits on the draft’s first goal. Council members described the current wording as trying to cover too many subjects at once and asked staff to split it into two distinct goals: one focused on fiscal stewardship and long‑term financial sustainability and a second focused on livability, housing and infrastructure, including streets and utilities. “If we split this into two goals — a livability/infrastructure goal and a financial stewardship goal — the objectives sort themselves out much more cleanly,” Council Member Sparks said during the meeting.

Council members also asked staff to produce a single, web‑friendly one‑page strategic plan that lists the vision, mission, verbatim goals and the projects that implement each objective, and to add measurable metrics for tracking progress. Damien said staff will return at the council’s upcoming general fund study session with a revised goals structure and a cleaned‑up list of projects and funding needs for council approval.

Councilmembers gave staff specific direction on several project lists shown in the packet: move items already likely to be completed this fiscal year off the active two‑year list so the remaining projects are clearer; treat community engagement and volunteer pipelines as a consolidated category; and consolidate social media and a planned generative AI policy review into a single communications policy effort so the city does not double‑work.

On timing, council agreed staff should bring the revised goals and the one‑page plan to a midyear budget check‑in as well as the scheduled general fund study session. Damien told the council the city will use the two‑year budget to stage projects and that items not funded in year one can be advanced to year two while remaining on the strategic list.

The meeting was convened as a special session and included a single public comment segment before the staff presentation and discussion. Multiple public speakers raised separate items — including public health requests and accusations regarding council operations — that the council acknowledged in the public‑comment summary but did not treat as formal agenda actions.

Looking ahead, staff noted several items that will need concrete budget decisions to move from “aspirational” to funded, actionable projects: water and sewer capital work (including a pending rate study), multi‑year park projects funded by grants, and planned electronic permit and file‑management work that would support a larger push to market Cotati to developers.

Councilmembers asked staff to return with both the reworded goals and a clearer picture of full‑time‑equivalent (FTE) capacity and capital funding required to move priority projects from the aspirational list to an actionable work plan.

The council gave staff direction rather than taking any formal votes at the meeting; staff said they would implement the requested changes and return with revised documents and budget implications.