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2025 STRATEGIC PLAN 1 STRATEGIC PLAN PROCESS On January 15-16, 2024, the Lake Elmo City Council and Staff Leadership Team held work sessions to develop both long-term strategies and short-term goals for the organization in 2025. The sessions focused on three key areas of strategic planning: long-term vision, organizational values and expectations, and short-term goal setting. The group explored the elements of the long-term vision, crafting strategy statements to define that vision. They then assessed the current state of the City and organization to create a list of goals for both the Council and staff, aligning with that vision. Through discussions, participants reflected on strengths, weaknesses, potential impacts, and emerging opportunities. The group also reached consensus on how various functions of local government must collaborate to succeed, establishing shared organizational values and expectations. The City Council will now review the outcomes of these sessions as part of adopting the 2025 Strategic Plan. LONG TERM VISION One of the primary outcomes of the Strategic Planning process is the development of a long-term vision. The vision is a description of the future the participants see for the community and the organization, often expressed in aspirational terms. The purpose of the vision is to establish a long-term direction that can be communicated both within the community and the organization, providing stakeholders with an understanding of the leadership’s direction. The vision is communicated through a series of descriptive and detailed organizational strategy statements, labeled core strategies. These statements can be both the embodiment of the areas the organization values and the direction of its leadership. Accomplishing progress on the core strategies will bring the organization closer to achieving its vision and provide the areas in which more manageable, short-term goals can be derived. Prior to the session, participants were asked to consider the characteristics and qualities they hoped would describe Lake Elmo and the organization in 2050. Participants individually shared their thoughts in writing in advance. The comments and input were collected and shared anonymously with the group in the first exercise of the session. The participants were given the opportunity to discuss the results of the pre-session work, identifying areas of consensus, emphasis, and importance to the long-term vision of the City and organization. The participants then reviewed a draft of core strategies areas based on the input from this activity. The core strategies are action statements that identify the organization and City’s long-term key areas of focus. The group refined the strategy areas before breaking into small groups to work constructively on developing strategic objectives that support each core strategy area. The strategies provide consistent and stable organizational priorities for the years to come, and serve as organizational guideposts for day-to-day action, policy formation, and program decision-making. It is anticipated that the core strategies may be modified over the long-term, but generally all agreed as to the key priorities of the leadership team.