CENTRE WELLINGTON — Township council is looking to set its path for the next few years.
During it's Monday evening meeting, council voted in favour of developing a new strategic plan which is intended to provide direction to city staff regarding the sorts of projects they should be working on.
The first step will be to hire a consultant.
CAO Dan Wilson explained the situation regarding the strategic plan for council.
“So if council agrees with this direction moving forward, we would suggest going to market, what’s referred to as a request for proposal. Which is where we seek bids from various consulting companies that provide strategic planning expertise.
“We would evaluate those bids and come forward to council with a recommendation to hire a particular vendor, hopefully early on in the new year,” Wilson said.
Once staff have found an appropriate consultant, the process of developing the strategic plan can begin, while considering all concerned parties.
“And then we would initiate a strategic planning process that involves council, staff and much-needed community and stakeholder engagement," Wilson said.
The strategic plan is critical to the functioning of the township. It makes it clear what needs to be achieved and by what timeline.
"Basically strategic planning involves defining a strategy or direction, making decisions and allocating resources to pursue a specific vision," the CAO said.
The strategic plan allows relevant individuals and parties to know what actions and resources must be invested in pursuit of what goals.
“It’s a critical tool to township staff in that it sets goals, it determines actions and helps us mobilize resources in executing the direction that council approves going forward for the term of council," said Wilson. “It does provide very concrete direction for the future of the township and it is seen as one of the most critical documents that the township has.”
In the last term of council, the pandemic proved to be an obstacle for staff and council.
“COVID-19 did provide a stumbling block in achieving a lot of the initiatives in the strategic plan. But I think that even taking that into consideration, we were able to accomplish a significant amount of the plan over the four years," said Wilson.
Some of the initiatives from the past term include helping people get around the township, be it related to parking or using a shuttle bus.
“There is a lot of discussion around downtown parking and initiating a shuttle program," he explained.
The parking and shuttle program has been started but the parking system still requires more work.
“We’ve been able to roll out parking strategies for the last two years here in Centre Wellington … and included a shuttle pilot program.
“And we look forward to looking at parking more long term after we pass the 2023 budget," Wilson said.
Staff have been successful at protecting water as well as providing it to those who need it in the township.
“Lots of discussion around water supply in terms of protecting our water supply and providing adequate water supply to our residents and other stakeholders – something we’re doing really well on," Wilson said.
Another initiative in the strategic plan is maintaining local roads.
“Lots of discussion on making sure our rural roads are sufficient from a rehabilitation and replacement perspective," Wilson said.
One strategic plan project that is also ongoing is the development and building of a township operation centre.
“And the operation centre is a big item as well," he noted. "The strategic plan actually wanted us to open an operation centre within the four years but we are a little bit behind on that.
“We are doing the planning process on the operation centre now and looking to move towards a detailed design in the future,” Wilson said.
Jesse Gault is the Local Journalism Initiative reporter for GuelphToday. LJI is a federally-funded program.
