The first meeting of the village of Oregon's new Strategic Plan Outreach and Planning Committee laid the groundwork for the long-term vision that village officials and committee members would like the community to realize in the next 20 to 30 years.
The 17-member committee met Thursday at Village Hall led by facilitator Bill Rizzo, a community development educator through UW-Extension Dane County.
Rizzo, who teaches strategic planning and has experience leading strategic planning and developing plans, will serve the role of committee chair.
Village President Steve Staton said the committee will operate by consensus decision-making rather than voting, an approach he said works well.
"We used consensus at the Oregon Middle School when I was there with our site council and committees, and I just really like it as a means to making decisions," Staton said. "What I found was once you make a decision, it has much more support and is more likely to be implemented. Everybody's on board that way."
The committee's role is to collect data, analyze the data, and make decisions based on what it learns.
"Nobody's there to lobby for what they want in the community," Staton said. "It's for what we find the residents want. So the data collection is a real important piece."
On Thursday, the committee set its meeting dates for the next several months. It plans to have the bulk of its work completed by September, so it's done before the Village Board starts the next budget process, Staton said. "Our goal is September, because it kind of ties back into the budget process as far as what might be in that plan. We can't fund everything that comes up, but it will be a prioritization of short-term, mid-term and long-term direction for the village.
"We're talking maybe 25 to 30 years out," he added. " We didn't set it exactly, but 25 years was the time period that was talked about, which I think is pretty reasonable to take a look at. But we'll also consider what can be done immediately."
Staton said Rizzo will work with a subcommittee between now and the next meeting.
"We're going to do a lot of work in subcommittees," he said. "There will also be a lot of things done to gather information from residents, whether it be focus groups or surveying - things of that type. We want a lot of input from residents."
The final strategic plan will not be determined by the committee, he noted, but will be based "on data that we get as we work with residents and get their input."
The Village Board last week decided that if a committee member misses four meetings within the first six months, they would be asked to resign, with the possible exception of people having an illness.
"If someone is not participating, we would ask them to step down, and then we'd discuss whether to add somebody or leave it at a lower number," Staton said Tuesday.
The board also decided that a quorum for the committee's meetings will be based on a majority of the members being present. If the number on the committee changes, the number of the quorum will also change.
"It's important to establish the quorum number," Staton said. "We want to have a quorum so we have enough people there to conduct business in a legitimate manner. If we have a time when there's a real small number of people there, we really don't have enough people there to discuss and make decisions.
"I don't think that will be a problem because I think people will be engaged. I was very impressed with the experience and knowledge of the residents that are on the committee, and with their interest in what we're doing."
He said it helps that a number of committee members have done strategic planning in the past.
Staton acknowledged that at 17, the committee might be "bigger than desirable."
Initially, the plan was to have six residents vs the current 11, but when 11 applications came in, "we didn't feel there was a real fair way to sort them out. Every body seemed real qualified and interested," Staton said. "We thought if they're all qualified and interested, let's get them all involved.
It's a pretty big group when everybody's there as far as discussion," he admitted, "but we'll end up doing a lot of things in subcommittees and smaller groups."
In addition to the 11 citizen members, the committee includes Staton and village trustees Randy Way and Phil Harms, along with administrator Mike Gracz, public works director Mark Below and another department head.
Staton said meeting dates are, for the most part, set for the second Thursdays of each month. He said meetings will be noticed officially and members would welcome the attendance of any interested people.
