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Charlottesville council spends retreat translating outcome areas into clear strategic goals

Charlottesville City Council · January 9, 2026

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Summary

At a retreat facilitator Joshua Renee led councilors through human-centered design exercises that produced candidate strategic goals—"drive informed participation," "measure effectiveness," and "turn plans into reality"—intended to guide staff decision-making and public engagement.

Joshua Renee, a workshop facilitator brought in to lead the council retreat, told council members the session was intended for "direction setting, not decision making," and guided exercises to translate the city's strategic outcome areas into concise goal statements. The council completed clustered exercises and a three-part "pressure test"—asking whether a goal would change residents' experience, advance more than one outcome, and help the city say no to misaligned work.

The exercise produced several candidate goals the council said staff could plan around: maintain accessible public engagement "to educate and connect the community to inform decision-making"; measure the "effectiveness and impact of city programming and report results to inform residents and build confidence in government"; and "turn plans into reality" so city projects deliver the intended benefits. "The city needs to know when it's winning," Renee summarized, urging a focus on measurable outcomes rather than operational minutia.

Council members and staff worked in small groups to convert post-it "ingredients" (verbs such as "engage," "measure," "implement") into draft goal language. Discussion centered on balancing high-level direction with the practical needs of departments to implement programs. Several councilors said the resulting goals should help staff prioritize and make tradeoffs during constrained budget years, and that clearer language would enable better public communication about why the city pursues particular projects.

The facilitator and city staff committed to packaging the draft goal language into a short public-facing set of statements for review. Council members asked that communications staff help craft plain-language versions for the public, and the city manager said the next step is for the administration and lead team to incorporate accepted language into the city's upcoming five-year strategic plan.

The retreat did not make binding policy changes; councilors stressed the session's intent was alignment and clarity. The council will receive the facilitator's write-up and will be asked to review proposed wording before staff begins incorporating the goals into budgets and departmental plans.