St. Pete Beach staff urges hybrid approach for strategic plan, commissioners favor scaled public survey

Candace Galloway, the city’s director of technology, presented an update on St. Pete Beach’s two‑year strategic roadmap and asked the commission for direction on next steps.

Galloway said staff has memorialized objectives, mapped projects to strategic pillars (community prosperity; operational excellence; resilience, recovery and sustainability; economic growth; reliable infrastructure) and begun drafting KPIs to measure progress. “The process isn’t really about identifying what matters. It’s now about, you know, deciding what matters most,” she told commissioners.

The presentation outlined three options: A) a full external, turnkey strategic‑planning engagement (staff cited a wide cost range presented in the deck: roughly $62,000 up to about $197,000 depending on scope); B) continue the internal, staff‑led course; or C) a recommended hybrid that pairs targeted outside facilitation with staff work to run statistically valid surveys, focus groups and community workshops. Galloway said the hybrid aims to produce tangible public deliverables and third‑party credibility while preserving staff momentum.

Commissioners pressed staff on scope and cost. Several members said they prefer a narrow hybrid focused primarily on a professionally administered survey to reach residents who do not usually participate in commission meetings. “The survey is the least expensive and I think the most valuable,” one commissioner said, suggesting a target budget in the low‑thousands rather than the high‑five figures shown in one hybrid example. Another commissioner asked whether the city can design an initial in‑house survey and test it before contracting external firms; staff said the city could do that but noted outside firms can provide statistically valid sampling expertise.

Commissioners also discussed staff bandwidth and the need for clear top‑down prioritization: staff can advance planning now but lack dedicated, full‑time resources to accelerate community engagement. Galloway said staff would continue the work regardless of the commission’s choice but asked whether commissioners wanted to accelerate the program by authorizing outside help.

Next steps: staff said it will incorporate the commission’s feedback and return with refined cost options and a proposed scope for the hybrid approach, including exact sample sizes and outreach methods. The commission did not take a formal vote at the work session.

Ending — procedure and context: the strategic planning update was delivered at the start of a longer budget work session; commissioners then moved into a separate discussion about the property‑tax constitutional amendment and CIP project prioritization.