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DeSoto council adopts 10-year strategic plan to guide priorities through 2035
Summary
The DeSoto City Council unanimously approved “Mapping DeSoto’s Future 2035,” a consultant-led 10-year strategic plan that lays out seven core goals and calls for an implementation dashboard and phased budgeting; the plan follows outreach including more than 400 survey responses and 30-plus interviews.
Mayor Rachel Proctor announced the council's unanimous approval of the City of DeSoto's 10-year strategic plan, Mapping DeSoto's Future 2035, following a presentation by Baker Tilly consultant Mr. Battle.
The consultant described a process of stakeholder interviews, community engagement sessions and surveys that produced more than 500 touchpoints: "we conducted over 30 individual interviews, community engagement sessions with 50 to 60 participants and a survey with over 400 respondents," Mr. Battle told the council. The plan sets seven priority goals, including strengthening infrastructure and mobility, driving economic development, enhancing public safety, improving community health and increasing government efficiency and data-driven decision-making.
Council members asked how engagement results would be shared and how the plan's actions would be funded. Council member Perrette Parker asked for the raw outreach results and participation numbers; Mr. Battle said the discovery report containing interview themes, focus-group summaries and survey results would be made available to council and the public. City Manager Al Godfrey said individual implementation costs will be assigned to departments during the budgeting process, and that management will present prioritized, budget-aligned action steps.
Councilmembers highlighted the need for an accountability tool. "We will use a dashboard so residents and council can see progress," the city manager said, describing an implementation dashboard (ClearPoint or similar) the city plans to use. Council voted to approve the plan and requested that the prior strategic-plan items that remain in progress be visible on the dashboard so the community can track both previous and current initiatives.
The plan now moves to management for creation of an implementation schedule and budget alignment; councilmembers noted some items will be short term while projects such as new fire stations and the ARC District will require multi-year phasing.
