Boulder City Council debates paying consultant for strategic plan

By Jean Reid Norman

Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009 | 1:55 a.m.

Boulder City is gearing up to re-examine its strategic plan, but the City Council isn’t sure whether it wants the help of outside consultants.

The council on Sept. 22 heard about the process the city’s staff plans to follow in updating the plan, which was written in 2000. A strategic plan lays out a vision for the city and sets goals for each of its departments.

Council members, however, questioned the need to hire a consultant for $80,000 over two years to facilitate neighborhood meetings and help write the final document.

The city plans to put out a request for proposals for the consulting work within the next month, and the council asked to see the document before it is published.

Community Development Director Brok Armantrout, who laid out the process for the council, said that $80,000 for consulting had been set aside from Redevelopment Agency money. “I would hope we would get things cheaper than that,” he said.

City staff members will do a good part of the work, “where it makes sense,” Armantrout said. “What doesn’t make sense is to run the meetings and write the documents.”

Councilman Cam Walker noted that consultants have a tendency to expand the work to fill the budget, and he suggested perhaps seeing how much work the city could get for a smaller amount, such as $30,000.

Councilman Travis Chandler suggested that an outside consultant may not fully appreciate the unique nature of Boulder City and might make recommendations that contradict that nature.

Travis Chandler

“This should be organized by people who know what the community is about,” Chandler said. “It is culturally different from other communities.”

Councilwoman Linda Strickland noted that many consultant’s reports feel boilerplate, which is a waste of money.

Linda Strickland

“I know it’s a lot of work, man/woman hours, to do this,” Strickland said. “If it’s spread over a reasonable amount of time, I don’t know whether we couldn’t accomplish it.”

But City Manager Vicki Mayes told the council that updating the strategic plan would spread the city staff too thin and take away from efforts to find beneficial energy contracts for the city.

“Right now, we’re short six positions in City Hall,” Mayes said. “The strategic planning process is a huge, huge amount of time.”

To that, Strickland replied, “That poses the question, do we need it at this point in time?”

Resident Goldey Begley, who chaired the committee that guided the stratetic plan in 2000, had pointed out during public comment that the plan was designed to be updated every five years.

At that time, the strategic planning process brought the community together in a way that resulted in hundreds of people turning out for community planting days at city parks, Begley said.

“I think the strategic plan is good and has good bones to build on,” she said.

The council members did not decide whether to hire a consultant but agreed they wanted to see the request for proposal and discuss the matter again.