Alpine County leaders map a narrower, measurable strategic plan for 2027'2032

JT Shevallia, Alpine County's economic development director, on Tuesday recapped the county's first five-year strategic plan (2021'2026) and proposed a leaner, measurable roadmap for 2027'2032 aimed at tying goals to quarterly key performance indicators and realistic staffing capacity. Shevallia told the Board of Supervisors the 2021'2026 plan correctly identified priorities such as economic diversification, housing, broadband and wildfire resilience but that many objectives were too aspirational and lacked interim milestones.

"We need to make it smaller and make it measurable," Shevallia said, asking the board to adopt SMART objectives with annual benchmarks and a regular review cadence. He identified recurring problems that limited implementation: unclear ownership for tasks, limited departmental bandwidth, a heavy reliance on one-time grant funding and the absence of an implementation dashboard to track progress.

The proposal includes phased work: a staff-led phase to confirm a planning framework and draft objectives, followed by community engagement through public workshops, targeted outreach to tribal partners and department interviews. Shevallia suggested setting numeric targets for some goals (for example, vacancy-rate reductions and grant-revenue targets) while cautioning that figures shared in the presentation were placeholders to prompt discussion.

Board members supported a more deliberate timeline and stronger public outreach. Several members urged aligning the strategic plan with the county's budget process so priorities have clear funding pathways and asked staff to hold a dedicated strategic-plan workshop outside the regular meeting schedule. "Let's not be so aspirational; let's create quantifiable objectives we can meet," one supervisor said.

CE0 Sam Booth and other supervisors recommended two community workshops (east and west side) and asked staff to incorporate pending regional studies, including the Tri-County economic analysis, into planning discussions. Board members also asked for stronger inclusion of Washoe tribal cultural tourism in plan goals; Supervisor Jim and Arts & Culture representative January Riddle urged connecting cultural programming to economic and tourism strategies.

Next steps agreed by the board included a short June update to confirm the planning framework and potential workshop dates, with a fuller return for consideration of a draft plan after preliminary budget work is completed. The board discussed targeting a revised plan for adoption by the end of 2026 so implementation could start in January 2027.