West Linn council workshop narrows priorities to maintain services and stabilize staffing, asks staff for strategic financial plan

West Linn — Councilors at a special West Linn City Council work session on Oct. 8 focused the morning on identifying funding priorities and how the city might pay for them, rejecting broad, unfocused ballot packages in favor of narrower, more sellable proposals.

The meeting, facilitated by consultant Sarah Wilson, began with a short engagement exercise and moved into a strengths–problems–opportunities–threats conversation that highlighted the city’s strong community trust and waterfront assets alongside a constrained revenue picture and very lean staffing. "First being to establish shared financial priorities," Wilson said as she framed the session’s goals.

Councilors and staff agreed that the top near-term priority is to protect and maintain current service levels and to stabilize staffing where departments are one-person thin. In a dot-prioritization exercise, maintaining service and staffing received the most support from both council and staff.…