The minutes of the Strategic Planning Meeting held at the Multimodal Transportation Center, 11 Uptown Circle, Normal, IL on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Mayor Snyder called the meeting to order at 9:02 a.m.

City Clerk Mrs. Gehlbach called the roll. Present for the Saturday meeting were Alderman Cooper, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Mourning, Alderman Neitzel and Alderman Parrott. Two Aldermen were absent; Alderman Bauer and Alderman Tibbs. Also present were Mayor Keith Snyder, City Administrator Clay Johnson, City Clerk Susan Gehlbach, Deputy Police Chief Paul Adams and Fire Chief Mark Miller, Building & Zoning Officer John Lebegue, Street Superintendent, Walt Landers and EMC/American Water Facility Manager Tim Ferguson. Mrs. Katie Davison of the Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) at Northwestern Illinois University served as moderator for the Strategic Planning Meeting.

Mrs. Davison asked the new attendees, Alderman Scott Cooper, IL American Water Enterprises Facility Manager Tim Ferguson, Street Superintendent Walt Landers and Building & Zoning Officer John Lebegue to introduce themselves and talk about their role with the City of Lincoln.

The meeting began with the “vision for the future” questions. The discussion then moved from vision to mission. There was long discussions identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, also known as the SWOT analysis. These are the resources you will draw upon to get to the end point. It is the strongest tool you can use to achieve your goals. The weaknesses and threats are the obstacles that you will need to overcome in order to achieve your goals. The purpose is to clearly see the strengths and the relationships to the opportunities and identify the weaknesses and threats that will need to be minimized.

In the last part of the afternoon, Mrs. Davison split the participants into groups and assigned each group to turn the goals for the strategic plan into smart goals. Each goal was to identify the task, how it would be addressed and a timeline for when the goal would be accomplished. The groups met back together to share their goals then went back to their groups again and determine how to achieve the goal.

Alderman Neitzel moved to adjourn the meeting and Alderman Horn seconded it. There were five ayes; Alderman Cooper, Alderman Hoinacki, Alderman Horn, Alderman Mourning and Alderman Neitzel. Alderman Parrott left the meeting at 2:10 p.m. and two Aldermen absent; Alderman Bauer and Alderman Tibbs.

The Strategic Planning Meeting was adjourned at 3:21 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted By:

Susan K. Gehlbach, City Clerk