Tempe’s future envisioned by elected leaders, fulfilled by city staff
Tempe City Council members have worked together to develop a new system for setting priorities that will allow city staff to focus on providing even better service for residents.
Starting with their October 2011 summit, Councilmembers have gathered in a series of open meetings to discuss, identify and prioritize their collective vision for the future of Tempe. The resulting 11 priorities include achieving long-term financial stability, enhancing neighborhoods and leveraging technology, among others. Those priorities have been grouped into three umbrella areas that will become the City Council’s new committee system.
The Council’s effort to identify its priorities complements a staff-driven initiative over the last two years to set and achieve specific goals to improve services across the city. The two efforts have joined together to provide a powerful new way for Tempe to identify and realize a community vision.
Since priorities will change over time, depending on the feelings of future City Councils, the biggest value of the current effort is in the process it has established.
“It is most important that we now have developed a way to help City Councils articulate and organize their visions for Tempe,” said City Manager Charlie Meyer. “That will help city staff members to always be assured that their work lines up with what the Council, and thereby the community, really wants.”
Council Priorities