Durham council refines values and goals in strategic‑plan workshop ahead of community outreach

Durham City Council convened a facilitated strategic‑plan workshop on Oct. 23 to refine the city’s values, goals and priorities before a coming round of community engagement.

Facilitators from Fountainworks and staff led council through value lenses — equity, economic justice, environmental justice and community engagement — and asked members to prioritize roughly five draft priorities per goal to take into the community. After discussion, members converged on four primary goal areas (with some wordsmithing to continue): a safe community; collective economic prosperity; intentional, sustainable built and natural environment (to house, move and support residents); and an innovative, efficient, high‑performing organization. Council emphasized the need for plain‑language phrasing when materials are presented to the public.

Council debated phrasing around housing (how prescriptive to be about affordability targets), the role of the city versus county in addressing food and child‑care deserts, and whether administrative priorities (pay and benefits, dashboards) should be framed as internal organizational enablers or public priorities. Several members asked that housing strategies remain broad enough to encompass homelessness prevention, workforce housing, and different affordability levels rather than lock the plan to a single metric.

Next steps: staff will turn the council’s input into plain‑language priorities and circulate a community process schedule; community conversations and a survey will start in the coming weeks, with staff returning to council in February to finalize goals before phase‑2 initiative development.

Why it matters: The strategic plan guides citywide investments and departmental priorities, shaping how bond dollars, staffing and program design are aligned across the next 3–5 years.