at a glance...
Quick Links
Washington County Strategic Planning
Steering Committee Members
Strategic Planning Goals
The Board of Washington County Commissioners empowers the Strategic Planning Steering Committee Volunteers to undertake a dedicated and concerted effort to envision the desired future for this County and its Communities. We ask that you focus your efforts upon designing appropriate actions for this County. While the primary focus should be upon actions that the County's governmental structure can and should undertake, we ask you not to limit your vision to that only. Also consider actions other non-governmental segments and stakeholders in the County and Communities should implement. Providing a long-term, i.e. 10 years, plan to make this County a better place to live, work, recreate, and raise children. Set a course to take us into the new century and establish a broad vision, or identity, for this County and Communities. In short, we empower you to recommend who and what this County should attempt to become, and to propose a plan of action steps we need to follow to reach that point.
We ask that you remember that Strategic Planning is both a process and a plan. As, “Strategic Planning is a process that is designed for a risky, demanding environment where hard choices must be made about what should be done and where good results, not just good intentions, define success."
The goal of Strategic Planning is to provide direction and demonstrate commitment. Unlike land use planning, zoning, and economic development, Strategic Planning involves a variety of issues to develop an overall umbrella strategy for the County's future. "The strategic plan of the County is the functional management document that pulls together the missions and goals of the County and Communities so that planning and zoning, and economic development can have some guidelines to follow."
We are not sending you forth on this mission without assistance. First, we will be providing facilitators to guide and work with you throughout this process. Please note that the term "guide" is the operative word. These facilitators will be there to aid and assist, but will not dictate or decide for you.
Secondly, there is a set of established steps to follow in the strategic planning process. This process is, and has been, utilized by many Communities and Organizations, and is well established both in the field and in literature on the subject.
Lastly, this Board, and hopefully the Communities of the County, and other agencies and groups, will freely provide you with information and insights along the way.
Please remember these few key concepts about Strategic Planning as you go about completing your task:
· Hard choices are required throughout the process.
· Strategic planning poses some problems that might be difficult or even impossible for a Community to overcome.
· It shares one problem with traditional planning in that it takes a lot of time, to do it right.
· It calls for sensible and realistic assessments of who can perform the necessary tasks identified in the plan.
· By involving many persons in the process, it builds an ownership in the success of the plan and the results, i.e. creates a set of stakeholders with a definite interest in the plans’ success.
We ask that you keep this process open, inclusive, and active. We expect you to gather input from the County and Communities at-large via public meetings and/or "brainstorming" sessions at critical points in the process. The frequency of such sessions and the methods used will be your decision to make as the overall Steering Committee. In addition, we also ask you to use the pool of persons who have indicated their willingness to serve on any subcommittees and/or task forces you decide to establish as part of this process.
We understand, and so must you, that the typical Community normally takes about twelve to eighteen months to complete this process - i.e. from initiation of the process through the completion of the action plan. While this is the norm, we ask you to proceed diligently, with the understanding that while we, as the Board of County Commissioners, have not established a completion date for your work, we do expect you to make steady progress on completing the task at-hand. Our County, with its’ smaller population is facing a number of complex issues many larger jurisdictions are not. The issues we do face are dauntingly different, and have far-reaching consequences for the future. However, we do ask that you be thorough and detailed in your approach. In addition, we direct your Chairman (whom you will select from among yourselves later) to provide this Board with brief, periodic, status reports as to progress being made.
This is a most critical task that you are about to undertake with broad and important implications for this County's future. You have the sincere thanks of the Board for your willingness to participate. Be assured that your dedication, civic mindedness, time, and efforts throughout this process are important and most appreciated.
