Tay Township council gave the go-ahead to staff this week to start working on strategic plan priorities.
"Let's tackle these six now and get them done and then pick six more," said Mayor Ted Walker, adding it would be feasible for staff to be able to work on this task in small chunks. "As we get some of them done, we may introduce some other items and carry on that way."
The priorities emerged from the Strategic Plan, which was devised with the help of consultants, and approved in November last year. Earlier this month, council held a special government and finance committee meeting workshop to create a priority list.
"Ideally, we've set those priorities, so we would start working on them today," said Lindsay Barron, the township's CAO "Some of them will take some time, others are a little easier to achieve. For instance, we're taking a look at our recreation programming and compiling and inventory of what we have and what other municipalities have and what some of the gaps are, we can go from there. That sort of thing can happen relatively quickly."
According to a staff report included in the council package, another priority that was identified through the workshop is to review planning and development policies, with an emphasis on increased development of housing, specifically affordable housing.
Another priority is to establish guidelines for frequent communications using various traditional and non-traditional channels, such as direct-mail campaigns, electronic signs, social media, and the township website.
"Other things, like looking at planning process and official process and how we do that is going to take longer," said Barron. "Changing communications and rolling out improvements in the software takes longer. It's all baby steps. We can have some little wins along the way that will get us to where want to be."
A two-part priority is to implement a road maintenence strategy while looking at traffic safety concerns and working on speed and signage.
In terms of economic development, the strategic plan includes a priority plan around resolving Victoria Harbour boat launch issues.
The strategic plan for 2020-2022 also looks at empowering Seniors Committee of Council to develop a plan to support "aging in place" strategies. For this, the township has put out a request for proposals to hire a consultant for further work.
The last priority being addressed in this initial phase is to do a formal assessment of the appropriate staff required for service delivery in the township and align existing resources with prescribed staffing levels.
"The priorities that are listed are really the priorities our consultants got through their consultation process," said Walker. "We did a number of open houses and an extensive phone survey to find out from residents what their priorities are for Tay Township."
Staff will now begin working on these priorities and will report back to council as each task is marked off, said Barron.
"We're looking at doing a review in the summer time to see where we are and look at what we have accomplished," she said. "And if we've ticked off a few priorities, then we can add a few more and keep going down the list."
