A draft of the City of Humboldt's Strategic Plan was presented to the public during a Town Hall Meeting on January 27.
The meeting gave citizens an opportunity to voice their opinions on the plan and share their visions of Humboldt's future.
"We are in the midst of an unprecedented growth in Humboldt," said Malcolm Eaton, mayor of Humboldt.
Since the city is predicted to grow by three per cent in the next few years, and with all of the new projects coming into the community, the city decided to take steps to face challenges they will have in the future.
"We've taken a number of steps and are pleased with the progress," said Eaton.
Strategic planning consultants Greg Argue, Ron Hilton and Keith Schneider were bought in to build a strategic plan with the city.
Although a strategic plan ends on goals and objectives, Argue likes to use a building blocks approach to reach this conclusion.
The three kicked off the town hall meeting by identifying Humboldt's mandate, mission and vision statements, which are a part of the strategic plan.
"These things are layered (and) work toward the action part of the strategic plan," said Argue.
Humboldt's mandate was, "to provide leadership, services, good governance, management financial stewardship and an environment for growth."
Next they identified the vision statement.
"You need to have a vision statement that is snappy and quick," said Argue.
The vision statement was, "A vibrant, thriving community - where you want to be."
Argue explained that this vision statement tells people the community is thriving and growing.
The last statement he identified was the mission statement, "Humboldt is a vibrant, inclusive, safe community engaging its citizens through communications, dialogue, partnerships and volunteerism. The city provides leadership through good governance, management, financial stewardship and the provision of efficient and effective services."
Argue also explained that identifying values is one of the most important things to talk about when making a strategic plan.
"Values speak to who you are, how you want to be treated and they speak to how you should treat others as well," said Argue.
Some of the values that were identified during the strategic planning process were respect, leadership, collaboration, openness, honesty and integrity.
Argue also pointed out strategic issues they had to take into consideration when preparing the plan.
"It's not about what's happening now, but (what is happening) in the future," said Argue.
They had to take into consideration things like growth, community, culture, and corporate sustainability and create goals for each of these factors.
"(We have to consider) where are we now and where are we going," said Argue.
After Argue presented the draft of the strategic plan, citizens broke into small groups to discuss what they thought the future of Humboldt should hold.
Once the groups had discussed their ideas, each group presented their ideas.
Many of the same ideas and values were heard from the groups, such as arts and culture, inclusion, safety, continuing with green building green spaces and to have the willingness to change when necessary.
One group suggested that Humboldt should continue to grow and develop upon its already strong cultural roots.
"We should promote the culture and city," said the group. They suggested showing pride in the community by having people in service fields, people tourists are likely to see, wear "I Love Humboldt" T-shirts.
Another group said Humboldt should be "inclusive of all age groups." They suggested trying to come up with activities that would interest both young and old.
Other groups believe Humboldt needs to be more youth and young-adult friendly. Some suggestions along those lines included having better post-secondary options available in the community, having a recreational facility where youth can hang out and creating new nightlife for the young adults.
Keeping communication lines open between city council and citizens seemed to be important value to all the groups. One group suggested a semi-annual newsletter be sent out to citizens, while a different group suggested city council come out to where the people are to spend time with their citizens.
The groups helped give those involved in the strategic planning process a better idea of what the citizens of Humboldt find important, the consultants felt.
"There were a lot of really good ideas," said Argue.
"The task will be to take this information and work to add it to the plan," said Eaton.
Eaton stressed the meeting was not the only time to bring forward ideas. He said they would like people to submit any ideas they might have to the city for consideration.
