photo by: Nick Krug

Lawrence City Manager Tom Markus is pictured Friday, Aug. 19, 2016 in his office.

In his first 100 days on the job, Lawrence City Manager Tom Markus already has discovered that it can be tough for elected officials to see the big picture in Lawrence, and listening to the loudest voices oftentimes doesn’t help.

Markus, who came to Lawrence after serving as the city manager of Iowa City, has issued a report on his first 100 days in office in Lawrence. In the report, he highlights a need for more strategic thinking on the part of Lawrence City Hall.

“I just think that they haven’t done strategic planning, and I think they know that,” Markus said. “And so there is a bit of a crisis du jour kind of thing that happens where the issue of the day takes precedence over the long-term, strategic approach to how we go about our business.”

A key theme for Markus’ first 100 days in office was to move forward with a strategic planning process, and he will be guiding the city commissioners as they prepare to plot out a long-term path. As part of that process, Markus identified weaknesses of the commission, such as allowing the minority opinion or the issue of the day to have a disproportionate sway over decision-making.

One of the tasks listed in the city’s advertisement of the city manager position was for the new manager to lead the process in creating a new strategic plan. The commission identified its broad priorities as part of 2017 budget planning. Those goal areas included six categories: public safety, mental health, infrastructure, non-motorized transportation/transit, affordable housing and economic development.

The next step is to get more specific, and commissioners will begin that discussion as part of their upcoming work session in September. Markus said that having a plan developed provides connectivity for commissioners and city staff, especially with the potential for turnover of half the commission every two years.

“It starts to get you to a point where you can prioritize all of the requests for the improvements that the city has on the table,” Markus said.

As a first step to the strategic planning, Markus did a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis for the commission. Markus identified one of the commission’s weaknesses as a tendency “to legislate toward minority vote instead of good of the whole.” Commissioner Lisa Larsen said that critique will be a part of the discussion.

“The public comment is obviously really important, but sometimes it can be that minority voice that’s the loudest,” Larsen said. “And that’s something that I think as part of the strategic planning that we’re going to have to decide — what voice we’re going to listen to and how that’s going to follow through with the plan. It’s not going to be black and white, that’s for sure.”

The strategic plan will involve gathering community input in order to determine the areas to focus on and city improvements to prioritize. Larsen said that having a citizen-driven planning process will help the vision for the city to be more reflective of what most citizens want.

“We’ve got to get more engagement from the citizens in order to determine what’s minority versus what’s majority,” she said. “Better engagement I think is a way to do that through the strategic plan, if the citizens know they’ve got a role in this and they’ve got a say in this.”

Mayor Mike Amyx agreed that having a strategic plan, especially one that involves widespread community input, will make for better decisions.

“It gives everybody the opportunity to really buy into the plan and kind of understand how they are a part of it,” Amyx said. “The commissioners, the community, department heads, whoever it may be.”

Markus said that with priorities in place, allocating limited financial resources will be done with the long-term vision in mind.

“It’s tough to be all things to all people,” Markus said. “At some point you have to kind of narrow your focus, you can’t have 100 goals, you have to have a limited number of goals that can actually be achieved to be really successful.”

Commissioners will begin discussing the process for the strategic plan at their work session on Sept. 13.