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An admission that a previous strategic plan was inadequate and a desire to come up with an improved document put Crescent City Manager Eric Wier at odds with Mayor Blake Inscore.

At a special meeting Thursday, Wier and his staff discussed the highlights and challenges their respective departments experienced last year.

Wier argued that a strategic plan should be timeless, reviewed annually and provide metrics on how the police, fire, public works, planning and recreation departments are meeting residents’ needs.

Inscore said that evaluating city staff’s ability to do their job is necessary, but he didn’t want creating plans and documents to be their focus. He also questioned what the City Council’s role in creating a strategic plan is and how it would benefit the public at large.

“To think the public is going to have much use for that document, I think, is very very optimistic thinking,” Inscore said. “I don’t think the average person cares. They don’t want to know about a plan. They simply want to know how are we doing our job when it directly affects them?”

Despite Inscore’s misgivings, concerns that were also echoed by his colleagues, councilors Jason Greenough and Alex Fallman, the three agreed to meet again to discuss the city’s strategic plan on March 23.

Mayor Pro Tem Heidi Kime and Councilor Isaiah Wright were absent on Thursday.

Crescent City’s most recent strategic plan is from 2016. The city has had a strategic plan in place since 2012, Wier said. But after working for the city for 17 years, two of which as city manager, Wier said the plan wasn’t useful to staff.

Meanwhile, 2019 was largely a time of transition for Crescent City, Wier said. In addition to a lot of retirees and new-hires, the community development and public works departments were reorganized. The Council approved a new recreation director position to oversee the Fred Endert Municipal Pool, Beachfront Park, Cultural Center and Shoreline RV Park.

A third-party contractor, Jacobs Engineering, took over operation of the city’s sewer plant, a new organizational structure was adopted at the police department, which also received a new chief, Wier noted. Master plans were also created and approved for Crescent Fire & Rescue and the Fred Endert Municipal Pool.

The master plan for Beachfront Park continues to be updated with the city pursuing state money for amenities at the park.

Crescent City also had its challenges in 2019. One concerns its new city hall, located at the old Bank of America building at 240 H Street.

The city purchased the building in November 2017 for about $180,000. Last summer it issued a request for qualifications for an architect that would be able to design the new city hall based on the concept and floor plan, Wier said. But no one responded.

“We contacted architectural firms individually and received plenty of ‘not interested,’” he told the Council on Thursday. “We received one response saying we’ll do it, but they wanted $150,000.”

The city had budgeted $75,000 for the project, Wier said. As the city formulates a strategic plan for 2020, Wier said they need to determine if the city hall project needs to be modified.

“We’ll come back with this in a separate meeting,” he told the Council. “Maybe our floor plan needs to be looked at again. Also there are some other discussions we need to have in regard to building options.”

When it came for Public Works Director and Planning Engineer Jon Olson to discuss his department’s accomplishments and challenges, he said it takes his staff an average of three weeks to process an application for a development permit.

The planning department’s goal is to have a permit processed and issued within 30 days, though it can be acceptable to issue a permit between 30 and 60 days depending on their complexity, he said.

However, Olson said when it comes to working with a planner, it takes the city’s contractor, Humboldt County-based SHN, an average of five days to get back to a customer.

“From our perspective, that’s not really acceptable,” he said. “We want to be tightening those timelines up.”

Olson said staff will try to improve that by recording the time when a planner has first contacted a customer and then documenting when the question has been completely answered.

Olson said his department is also working on a mechanism to allow people to report code enforcement violations and apply for over-the-counter permits online or via a kiosk at city hall.

Crescent City’s new recreation director has only had six months in her position, but Holly Wendt noted that there have been major changes at the swimming pool, the RV park and Beachfront Park.

A the swimming pool, six new lifeguards were hired while staff began working on an “actionable” 10-year plan, Wendt said. The city is creating a steering committee to guide the swimming pool’s master plan and will partner with Building Healthy Communities to gauge the community’s opinions on the facility.

In addition to holding the 2nd-annual swim camp recently, people have been receptive to babies and tots programs as well as stand-up-paddle board and kayak lessons, Wendt said.

Wendt also oversees the city’s RV park, whose name is now Lighthouse Shores RV Park. The new RV park will include an upgraded office building with a store and an online booking system. Wendt said Lighthouse Shores RV park will also feature a newsletter.

The city will measure the RV park’s success by the number of bookings as well as transiency occupancy tax income generated by Lighthouse Shores, Wendt said. The city will also track reviews on Yelp, Google and other crowdsourcing websites.

As for Beachfront Park, the city is pursuing grant dollars through Proposition 68. The City Council hired Greenway Partners of Arcata to continue to conduct community outreach. On Monday, the city also hired Berkeley-based PGA Design to update the Beachfront Park Masterplan.

“They have an extensive history designing 70 public parks, 44 master plans,” Wendt said. “They do beautiful work and are very successful at multiple styles of grants. We’re sitting pretty, hopefully.”

Once his staff were done going through the previous year and their hopes for future progress, Wier said Thursday that he wanted to start a process.

“The strategic plan is not going to be static,” he said. “It has to be a living document.”

Fallman, however, asked what the strategic plan’s value was.

“Why not have a white board and a list of all the things you’re going to get done this year?” Fallman asked.

Crescent City Finance Director Linda Leaver noted that the strategic plan, which will be tied to the city’s budget, lets staff know what programs and services are priorities.

“If we have to decide between five different projects this month, how do we know which one is the most important to the Council and the community?” She asked.

Olson said he felt a strategic plan would also be useful for future staff.

“This is helping us to implement things that outlive me,” he said. “Putting together systems that are effective that doesn’t require my brain to operate it. It requires whichever beating heart is in the seat next time. We’ve set them up for success.”

Inscore, however, said he didn’t want creating a strategic plan and determining if the city is measuring up to it to keep staff from doing their jobs. Inscore also didn’t want the document to become an exercise, though he said the city’s mission and value statement should be revised.

Greenough agreed with Inscore, saying that it’s important for staff not to put “too much time into this so we’re losing the purpose.” He noted that a lot of companies list positive customer service as a crucial part of their operation.

“In Disney, it’s engrained in their employees,” he said. “If you’re going to work here, you got to do it the right way and the right way is ‘service with a smile.’”

Crescent City Human Resources Director Sunny Valero, however, noted that while Disney is a good example of positive customer service, their employees learn that discipline through documentation and training.

For the city’s department managers, they want to achieve goals, not just for the public, but for themselves and their staff, Valero said.

“People like to have direction,” she said. “By getting those goals lined out we can use that as a training tool for our next account clerks, and our next maintenance workers that come in.”

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