here here here it's like me and Michael was just somebody else why yep you can switch with someone I guess oh I think we're ready yeah well good morning and welcome to the fort city council Retreat to all the staff and importantly let's start with thanking the beautiful Convention Center for breakfast this morning and the staff thank you Mike and your entire team now councilwoman Beck says that diabetes sets in immediately if you try the coffee because it's so sweet so if you need a pick-me-up at some point that's what you need to go try apparently um so I'll just kick us off with welcoming remarks and then we'll turn it over to David Cook to introduce Hillary and the team at sgr thank you for being so diligent about trying to chase us down at each council member to make sure you had in mind what we wanted today to be about I think our number one Focus today is to be visionary to think really big about where Fort Worth is now but importantly where we want it to be in the future and have conversations at this table that many of us will not be in leadership when these dreams come to fruition but we started that process together and I know that several of us around the table have been a part of these maybe sitting at the cedar um in the seats out here in the audience but I know that mayor Pro Tim Bivins and of course councilman Flores have been a part of these before as well much longer this is an opportunity for us to really come together and think differently and I will end with a quote from Malcolm Gladwell if you've met red Gladwell you'll understand why that the Visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper and reimagines the world so let's think today about what each of you want not just for your districts but for all the amazing people that live in Fort Worth and will live here into the future and really push ourselves to be Visionaries today and with that I'll turn it over to David Cook thank you good morning everybody I think it's appropriate that we're in this room and Behind these folks over here is where the new law school is going to be and you can picture two other a m buildings that'll be let's just say more than 10 stories each a new Convention Center hotel with a thousand rooms right over here in that street that's a little crooked when you look out the window will be completely straight and all this this building will be changed too huh that's it and that'll take time and a lot of money but all that is in motion and I think you're aware that a m had a announcement yesterday they've increased the law school budget from 85 to 150 million and the um the new law school will be nine floors instead of four so they essentially doubled the budget and size of the building so pretty cool that's just that's just for starters but I do want to thank everybody for time I I think the uh time is valuable in spending a day together to talk about the vision for the future is incredibly important it's important for the city it's important for the currently 950 000 residents and growing and so I just want to thank everybody for the time and it is important uh work that we'll be doing today and we've asked uh sgr Ron Holly field and Hillary shine to help us get through the day in a fun way in a productive way I've known Ron for I don't know how many years Ron's one of those guys you call when you've you've banged your head against the wall multiple times and you need either some comic relief or some crazy ideas just to get you in motion again so I've leaned on Ron over the years and so thank you Ron for wanting your work and to your friendship and Hillary uh I've been told is a legend in the field who told me that Renee Taylor told me that so uh actually we're glad to have you I'm going to stop talking and turn it over to you guys see how it's gone thank you good morning I'm Hilary shine and I am your tour guide for the day uh actually I'm your facilitator so what you should know about me is I spent 20 years in city government primarily in Communications but also dealing with these types of issues in a growing Community I was in Killeen for those 20 years so two hours south of here and a challenging um but but uh I'm very proud to be from that community and to have served it for that long um but now I've I've transitioned into this role with sgr and so it is my goal today to help you think big dream big because ultimately the council holds in their hands today the future of this city that's a huge responsibility that you all carry every day and you've got constant pressure to deal with the little you know the small stuff that's happening left and right and so it leaves little time often for you to think big so for you to have committed your time today to this and to really try to set this strategic course in motion is going to pay dividends and just like the mayor said it may not pay off today but the work that you do today is going to pay off tomorrow and and I think everybody can rally around that cause so um with that I'm just going to take you through kind of the course of the day it's good to see all of you in person I got to speak to all of you on the phone and so we did a lot of the the kind of nuts and bolts work before we got here so we can spend our time primarily on you know really honing in on what it is that we want as a council to achieve over the next one to three years and what our strategic priorities are so that there's Clarity with staff as they start developing plans to to to act on your desires and wishes oh that would help so so we've we've done the the welcome um the plan of work today you have your agenda so basically this morning we're going to do a little bit of talk about governance and how that relates to Vision setting and forming the plan for the future then we're going to move into the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats which we all did um independently but I have Consolidated in a master list so we'll walk through those and talk through what we think are the the top on that list and and what we think we need to be most hypersensitive or aware of um and then we're going to take a break you will get fed so I'm not going to make you work through lunch you will get to you will get to eat and then we're going to come back and really look at those strategic priorities and in talking with each of you independently um you all were saying the same things big things you were saying them differently from your perspective from your District so I think it'll be an interesting exercise for you to see what everybody else is saying as far as what our top strategic priorities are and then we'll talk through how we set goals underneath those so we'll really try to say okay overarching goals for policy level decisions would look like this and we want to see your perspectives from your districts embedded in those so we'll walk through that exercise and hopefully walk away today with some clarity that can be handed to staff so they can start planning toward those ends um so so why why are we here it's it's because your Visions what will one day be and if we're not saying this is what we want to be then it's just happening and so you know a medical school doesn't just happen there's thought and there's planning and there's work that goes into that there's you know strategy about okay well if we located it here well where does parking go where does this go is is is the funding going to come through the legislature there are all these moving Parts but the vision was we want to be available for some massive investment um through a university system um you know this quote is where there's no vision there's no hope that's a really heavy thought to think where you know your hopes and dreams are rooted in Vision it's this is what I believe my community should be this is what I believe the people deserve that choose to call Fort Worth home because they choose to call Fort Worth home they're not here because they have to be and so the responsibility you have in that to continue to provide an environment government that they want to remain in and keep their families in and raise their families in it is is so important and stepping back and saying what is the vision for this community what has gotten us to this point and what will take us to the future is really what today is all about and and Clarity of vision is the key to achieving your objective so you can say I like Economic Development and hand it to staff and then staff has to go okay well what do they mean by that this is what we think they mean this is what we're going to kind of do and they come back to you and you're like that's not what I wanted because it wasn't clear so we're going to spend some time really trying to clarify what those priorities are what the the goals or your expectations of those are so that staff can bring you back plans that will meet your desired outcomes um but we're going to start with Ron hollifield who is going to give us a presentation that talks about governance as a system and where visioning fits into that and why it's so important as we move through today good morning it is so great to be with you today and whatever you came in expecting this section to be about is not it so get ready for me to kind of shift your focus a little bit the reality is that everything is a system and we're going to talk about systems a little bit and governance is a system in fact let's look at a couple of examples here flash back to a moment to fifth grade physical science in fifth grade science you did an experiment where you took a piece of pot house Ivy and cut it off and put it at least in my days in a Coca-Cola bottle in the windowsill with water and literally you started out with the plant facing away from the light and within 24 hours the plant had physically reorganized itself to face the light that is a natural system when we walked into the room and the lights came on when we flipped the switch if they had not come on there's only about three or four reasons the lights would not have worked that's why an electrician can make a living as an electrician if it were unlimited if it were not a system there'd be no predictability in other words a system simply means predictable inputs create predictable outcomes but it's not just physical systems or natural systems it's people systems flashback to about your sophomore year in college your organizational psychology class and you heard about at that time a concept designed by Frederick Taylor called scientific management and scientific management posited that you can figure out precisely the right way to do everything you could figure out exactly the right light lumens to be able to optimize productivity you can figure out exactly how far the chair ought to be away from the desk Etc in other words it was viewing people as cogs in the machine and I think it was a seamstress Factory in Chicago but they brought in a Management Consultant they had bought into scientific management and they come in and they're trying to optimize using the Principles of Scientific Management and what happens is they turn they're trying to figure out exactly the right temperature to be able to optimize productivity they turn the temperature up and productivity goes up they turn the temperature down productivity he goes up they turn the temperature sideways and productivity goes up the discovery you may remember the phrase the Hawthorne effect from that college organizational psychology class the discovery is yes human beings operate in systems as well but the productivity increases were not about the right temperature they were about how they were being treated they perceived wrongly that management cared it was the perception that management cared about them that was actually driving the improvements in productivity so keep that in the back of your mind because the reality is when it comes to governance and how you operate as a team and how you do or do not achieve your vision those human systems in how you interact will actually determine whether you're successful or not now let me qualify I'm going to say some kind of brutal things as I go through this this morning Hillary has not briefed me on any of your conversations David has not briefed me on anything the things that are going to step on your toes are because they are Universal things not because somebody has blown in my ear and I'm looking to speak to you so when I step on your toes pay extra close attention Okay so what we've got to understand is that all human interaction go back to what I Define systems as a moment ago predictable inputs create predictable outcomes if you treat people in a certain way you're going to get certain kinds of responses does that make sense one city council we worked with in the Kansas City area had two of the elected officials had not spoken to each other in three years and I mean when I say not spoken I mean what would happen is Alan was interested in responding to Chris and Alan would say Mayor literally mayor would you tell Chris this and Chris would respond mayor would you tell Chris that and and literally in a three-day Retreat we did we managed to overcome that and get them speaking again and here's what's fascinating they agreed about everything they fundamentally agreed about everything but an interaction of one of them towards the other one had offended him and it had festered and grown up into this thing that began to affect the ability of the entire city council to work together does that make sense so with that is a little bit of a backdrop let's jump into a couple of these things here I want to start with identifying some of the challenges and you'll notice I use the word board throughout this instead of counsel the I spent 20 years as a city manager I didn't come out of the private sector but what I discovered back to systems theory is that governance systems what what creates success in your role on the board on a governing body is true whether it is a corporate board a church board a school board a city council Etc because the human systems that determine success are all the same so all of my research when it comes to designing how we think effective governance Works actually comes out of the private sector because there's very little really great research in the public sector that's been done about what success really looks like so top 10 governance challenges identified by board chairs this actually came out of the health care industry so the board chair would be the equivalent of the mayor and this is what they identified as the big challenges and think about the universality of this and the systems that apply to you engaging the board in its quality oversight responsibilities effective use of good people finding effective staff leaders conflict and points of view among board stakeholders and management loss of control to external forces planning in a rapidly changing environment concern over Service delivery costs maintaining board commitment education and efficiency board understanding of complex issues staff relations and communication let me go back to a couple of those maintaining board commitment education and efficiency if you were serving on a corporate Board of a publicly traded Corporation you would legally be required to have a certain number of hours a year of board training you are obligated by law to learn what the heck you're doing in the public sector do you all have elections in May so one Friday night in May you go to bed and you're a normal person you wake up you go to bed on Saturday night and you are now in the view of a lot of people's semi divinity you are presumed to be powerful all wise all-knowing and can control everything and the first time you get hit in the face understanding that is when you go to church on Sunday morning or the grocery store on Sunday afternoon and all of a sudden everybody expects you to be able to answer the question why does the sewer plant stink now let me do a sidebar all of you remember Maslow's hierarchy Maslow and I mean this in all sincerity Maslow missed one stage on the hierarchy and that is the need to not look stupid it is a dramatic driver of our Humanity all of us have that need and all of us want to deny that we have that need so how does that relate to your service on the council you go to church on Sunday morning or the grocery store on Sunday afternoon and somebody jumps you out about why the sewer plant stinks you feel obligated to either act like you know what you're talking about or to blame staff and say Dad government the staff didn't teach me that in the last 12 hours I can't believe they did that I'm going to hold them accountable I promise you I won't let staff get away with not equipping me again that's our re that's feeling a little familiar the trick is your role as a member of the governing body is to understand what your role is and your role is not to be staffed your answer to that question is you know heck I don't know but I know who knows and I'll be back to you by noon on Monday or I'm going to have I'm going to call the city manager right now and I'll call him in front of you and I'm going to leave David a message and have him have the right person give you a call there is no shame in not understanding everything it is insane to think you can get elected on a Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon understand how a billion however many dollar budget Corporation it is and let me just make it a little more complicated for you in the private sector the board and the customer base basically all agree with what the role of the company is if you want to go fly to Boston and you book a ticket on American Airlines there's no real disagreement on what the goal is the board of American Airlines knows that their goal is to sell more seat miles and a healthy margin than they did yesterday it's everybody's in agreement in the public sector there is no agreement on what the goals are does that make sense so what happens is if we don't really understand what's driving the differing opinions interpersonal stuff ends up taking over the conversation and we think there are conflicts on Vision that there really aren't what happens a lot of times particularly the newer and elected official is is they show up right after getting elected they got jumped out on Sunday at the grocery store come Monday morning or Monday night Tuesday night whenever your council meeting is they show up at the council meeting the cameras are rolling they don't want to look dumb and what happens is the more they try to not look dumb the more obvious it is they're dumb does that make sense faking it is never a good strategy it's never a good strategy so what you want to do is understand that your number one role as an elected official is to shape the future it doesn't matter if you are in my 14-foot fishing little aluminum fishing boat or if you're in the Queen Mary if you take your hand off the wheel you go in circles it's the nature of a boat or a ship it's the same thing with an organization if the council is down in the engine room going I don't like the way that engine sounds you're not doing your job with your hand on the wheel the vision is all about your hand on the wheel headed towards the future and say that's the Horizon that we're pressing for does that make sense and any time you take your hand off the wheel of the vision to go Tinker in the engine room you are you are making an affirmative decision for the organization to go in circles anytime okay let's jump a little further this is the top 10 governance challenges identified by CEOs and again this is out of the health care industry board members don't know who they represent ooh that starts to get a little sticky especially when people show up at your Council meetings telling you you're not listening to the people let me give you a statistic the national Dairy Council did a study this is about seven years ago now Washington Post ran the story you can still go look it up six percent of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows real stat now keep that in mind when you're making decisions about the future and part of our challenge is in our politically charged environment the temptation is for us to when people are beating the heck out of you is to hunker down and begin to yield and back up and and it's not the right solution the right solution is also not to take a political approach that says I'm not going to listen to that person because I think they're an idiot the right solution is to do a better job of listening to the body politic to the whole Community you have to at the very time that our Humanity tempts us to quit listening because we're so tired of being beat about the head and shoulders the right answer is to say how do we do a better job of listening but not to a single subset does that make sense bored reluctant to handle quality issues bored confused about roles this goes back to the engine room and the bow discussion board two involved in details need for better board Recruitment and lowered turnover rate bored confusion over loyalty to the community or the organization lack of board member time to prepare and work at governance let that one sink in you don't get really good at anything without working at it continuous need for board education boards don't understand economic and budget issues complexity of issues facing boards need more big thinkers in other words your role as The Visionaries is to do the big thinking now it's your job to make sure that the systems are working well to make sure the potholes get fixed Etc but it's not your job to be out making a list of potholes does that make sense there's a distinction between part of your vision is to make sure we have systems that are working effectively and if we don't have the system that's working effectively we need to we need to figure out what do we need to do differently but you still don't belong down in the engine room does that make sense questions on any of this so far all right so we're going to get really personal now those are kind of the global stuff and these are the things and so traditionally when you talk about governance it usually is about governance policy and you need to have that it's critical to have that but the foundation to effective governance policy is effective governance mindsets on the part of the governing body in other words where your head is determines how successful you're going to be so we're going to talk about a few specific examples of how you individually as elected officials can be more effective in achieving your policy goals now let me let me hear this clearly sometimes it is counter-intuitive that by staying out of the engine room you actually make the ship run faster towards where you want it to go does that make sense you want to be focused on the vision and what is keeping us from moving towards the vision not trying to because we're all offend just about everybody I haven't offended so far not go back to Maslow's deal a Temptation in the desire to not look stupid is to try to really lean in and micromanage that which you really understand that's not your it doesn't matter whether you understand it or not it's not your job to be and I don't know what anybody does this is not a director it's not your job to be an insurance expert for the city it's not your job to be a mechanic expert whatever your job is to be a governance expert to be the Visionary leaders of the where are we going on the horizon so effective leadership strategy one know what you don't know before acting like you do know what everyone else knows you don't know foreign when you talk about knowing what you don't know recognize we're all ignorant on different subjects and that's okay there is a book that in in your in your business I would encourage you to read it that is profoundly shaped sgr called Rocket Fuel and part of what it talks about is that for a small fast-growing business to thrive it needs a Visionary leader and what they call an integrator and if you don't understand the different roles and are at peace you're not going to thrive now they're talking about it in a small business context and it has it has profoundly shaped how we're structured as an organization how we function as an organization but it's equally applicable to you if I try to be an integrator I'm honestly I'm a great Visionary if I try to be an integrator I'm going to have it so screwed up I literally I literally had some folks try to buy me about 10 years ago and they literally looking our stuff said Ron we looked at all of this and we said wow if you can do what you've done with this just think what we could do since we know what we're doing see what happens is we feel this need back to the grocery store we feel this need to act like we're an expert in everything instead of knowing what it's our job to be an expert at and say we're going to be really really good at what we do and we're going to make sure we have the right systems in place to make sure the organization performs at the top level and as kind of implied in the last one ignorance is transparent if you try to act like you know what you don't you're the only one being fooled and the only one looking foolish the media and your opponent can do far more damage to you for trying to act knowledgeable than for saying I don't know and I would tell you when you say I don't know don't make it a kind of shadowy I don't really know you know don't be a be bold about it it's not your job to know you need to know what your job is and lean into that and your job is to not know why the sewer plant stinks does that make sense number two strategy two walk the talk of a genuinely humble Spirit the hardest part of making a good board decision is not offering Solutions before you understand the problem and make no mistake in a political environment you have people who want you to make the decision they want you to make and they don't want you to deliberate they don't want you to think about it they want you to do what they want you to do and it becomes extremely hard to resist that temptation strategy three know yourself know your values before they're challenged don't be seduced by ends and means rationalization don't let a recently swelled ego change who you are it is so seductive for elected officials all of a sudden remember what I said in the beginning come Sunday morning your semi Divinity in the minds of a lot of people that can be so seductive if you're not careful you have to be there's there's people who want your attention there's people who want to tell you how smart you are there's p and lots of times they're doing that to manipulate you so you've got to be cautious and keep balanced maintain your sense of values and make sure you always know how to come back to what your true north is I'll let you read this just a second this is listen listen more talk less and I'm just going to let you read it foreign a lot of cases staff is your lighthouse you've got to be tuned in to taking in data it's your responsibility to make the ultimate decision but you need to hunger for that data you need to hunger for that input one of your challenges with staff is there can be a temptation to get mad at staff if they don't give you the answer that you think you want them to give you the thing you've got to understand if you can intimidate a staff member into giving you the answer you want somebody else can intimidate the staff member into giving them the answer they want what you want out of staff is to give you their honest answer no matter what You can disagree with it you've got the authority to take that in and do with it as you will but you don't ever want to be pressuring staff to give you the answer you want them to give you does that make sense it's really important that you want their best professional opinion now staff it is critical one of the biggest mistakes that staff makes is the tendency to become so wrapped up in the rightness of your professional opinion that you get wrapped around the axle and it becomes an emotional Dynamic and you get mad at a council member because they didn't do it the way you wanted to do it it is critical for staff to understand that the role of counsel is to be the conduit through which the vision for the future of the community is translated into reality what that means you need to expect to always be able to give your professional opinion but you also need to emotionally embrace the fact that Council has the right to do dumb they do [Laughter] it's not staff's job to determine what the decision is it is staff's job to provide your best professional opinion No Holds Barred but not trying to manipulate it just honest true straightforward here's what I really think that ying and yang so to speak between the role of counsel and the role of Staff if you really get into that Dynamic that creates a healthy governance environment because if you know that staff member X is going to tell you exactly what they think it builds trust because you know they're also going to tell Jared exactly what they think does that make sense so you you need to be really looking to staff to give you their absolute blunt straightforward best professional opinion and staff you need to get rid of the emotional engagement when counsel doesn't think whatever you thought was the way to go those are role distinctions I'll let you read this one as well one of your roles is to learn how to ask good questions I'm not talking about a dynamic where you stay disengaged I can't tell you how many times as a city manager when watching a dynamic going on I'm wishing from the Diaz that the council would ask the right questions you know lots of times the manager can see it and you're going well ask us ask this think about your questions in advance don't Focus your questions on grandstanding ask why I'm asking what I'm asking and what I'm trying to accomplish does that make sense now there are times that you want to ask a question for political reasons you feel the need to Telegraph to your folks that you're paying attention and hearing them and you're wanting to ask that question the best thing to do is to give David or the mayor depending on the dynamic of the item a heads up that says hey I've got a neighborhood who's really really upset about this I'm going to ask this question can you make sure David that you've got the staff ready to explain why we have that street torn up see what happens you accomplish more by working within the system than by bushwhacking the manager and the staff in the middle of the meeting because they actually come prepared to be able to ask your questions now let me also warn you emphasis is not just ask questions it's ask good questions go back to Maslow for a moment the need to not look stupid one city I worked with as a city manager I had a council member who was a lubricant salesman for Mobile Oil every agenda item we would get a lubricant question we could be or we could be buying awarding a copy paper bid and we'd get a lubricant question so what did we do on Mondays when we had our staff prep session prepping for the council agenda with 10 or so department heads sitting around a table when we all had lots of stuff we needed to be doing we would devote an hour to trying to anticipate what was the lubricant question that was going to come up on every agenda item see because we didn't want to look stupid we we didn't want to look stupid so what do we do so what you've got to understand is when you ask questions the mere Act of asking a question is driving the allocation of resources back to your semi-divinity right so if council's gonna if a council member is going to ask about lubricant a lubricant question on a copy paper bid staff is going to spend the time researching and prepping for it in advance and it would have been so much simpler if that council member would have sent an email and said hey I'm going to ask these questions on these items be prepared for it we could have we could have solved all of that in like 10 minutes but instead we had to spend time trying to figure out anticipate guess so ask good questions and and not softball questions I'm I'm not suggesting you be afraid to ask you need to ask hard questions but you need to think about what is the goal in asking the questions and then you need to Telegraph that to the manager and the mayor so they know what's what's coming and how to make sure that the whole dynamic is as productive as possible number six is know the Str the structure and processes this is more about the traditional government stuff your governance policies understand the form of government understand the way decisions are made understand the authority and limitations of the position one of the things that happens to new elected officials is that they get elected back to the whole grocery store dynamic they get elected they've made a bunch of promises but they haven't really climbed the Civic ladder sometimes and they don't understand how this is the system works and how to get decisions made so they show up at the first council meeting with the catcher's mitt and a ball cap at a football game and then they get frustrated that what's going on is they can't get anything done because they're they're there to play baseball and everybody else is playing football and the Temptation in today's world is to immediately assume the reason they can't get anything done is because it's a conspiracy so what we've got to do is up the game on helping elected officials and citizens prospective future elected officials understand before they get to the die is how the system works help them be effective because the the more frustrated somebody becomes at feeling like they're an outsider the more they become a rock thrower does that make sense so what you do is by the mere Act of saying we're going to take every year and make sure everybody's on the same page of how decisions get made how we go through our decision making processes you actually dramatically reduce the amount of friction number seven know the Dynamics influencing the issues when you're thinking about an agenda item you need to think comprehensively some of this is back to the asking the right questions but think about all of the things that are influencing this decision because the reality is you operate in an incredibly complex environment with a world that demands everything gets solved in 240 characters or 280 characters whatever Twitter is in other words we are not an environment that rewards thoughtfulness we're in an environment that rewards do what I want you to do when I want you to do it you've got to really discipline yourself to say if I want to make the best possible decisions not just for the next election but for the Next Generation I need to really understand what are all of the Ripple effects of these decisions number eight develop your position thoughtfully understand the authority and scope and limitations of your position recognize you don't have all the answers understand the driving forces understanding the restraining forces Define your Core Concepts make your position very tight and focused articulate your position carefully and number nine don't confuse supporters goals with the public interest it is perfectly appropriate for folks to be looking out for their special interest whoever it is that's that is their role it's not your role to confuse their special interests with the public interest does that make sense you've got to really and all of it really comes back to depth of understanding and thinking broadly and going this may be the right decision but we need to be thoughtful in concluding this is really the right decision not just for today but for the Next Generation number 10 deliberate with Integrity avoid squabbles over issues that don't matter avoid wasting time on the small stuff fight hard for your issue then unify behind the board when the decision is made now by unifying I'm not I don't mean that you suddenly say I agreed with the decision but if you believe the decision has been made with Integrity of process you can defend the Integrity of the decision even if you were on the losing side doesn't mean you have to agree with it but there is a difference what what happens in a lot of cases in today's world is the Temptation if I disagree with that decision it means somebody is evil or somebody's on the take or somebody you know all of these sorts of things that in today's environment that there is the temptation to vilify people instead of going I lost on that one I disagreed with it but I am confident in the Integrity of the process that led us to that decision I am confident in the Integrity of my colleagues who were all I believe wrong but they are still high integrity never attribute to malice that which is adequately ascribed to stupidity see if you can if you can really begin to live that what happens is if I think you're stupid it doesn't rip the relationship if I think you're malicious it rips the back to the two guys in the council that didn't speak it was over a dumb thing but it ripped the relationship because one of them perceived that the other one had acted towards them with malice disagree without being disagreeable deal effectively with cavemen rather than catering to and empowering them you know what cavemen are right citizens against virtually everything don't let articulate incompetence drive you to make incompetent decisions out of fear articulate incompetence are the folks that can make doing the wrong thing sound so right that if facts if truth is not a barrier you can make anything sound smart number 11 communicate your goals and priorities clearly I'll let you read this make sure you're communicating what you really intend foreign act with courage it takes courage to sit on the city council it takes courage honestly I don't know any of your family members but I'd better stack a hundred dollar bills that every one of you when you were pondering running for Council had a family member or a friend go what the heck are you thinking it's hard and until somebody has sat in your role they don't really understand the amount of abuse you take and it's hard to it's it's hard it's hard for the they don't they're not oblivious out of malice but they really don't understand the amount of pressure and the amount of abuse and the amount of accusations and all of that serving on the city council is not for the weak-hearted but to the extent you really build systems that we're talking about healthy governance systems how you deal with each other how you deal with staff how you deal with the community it becomes so much easier you're doing something that matters that has profound impact on the citizens of Fort Worth fifty and a hundred years from now and by constantly bringing yourself back to the profoundness of the responsibility is what allows you to deal with a lot of the insanity and learn how to lose gracefully people will remember how you acted in defeat more than they will how you acted in Victory when you lose on an item when you lose on an agenda item don't go bad-mouthing the rest of the council don't let it become a personal thing that you're mad about take just the opposite approach and go okay what did I miss here how could I have been more effective in making my case I want to go sit down and learn from those who voted against my position and understand where they were coming from because by taking that approach it's not just about being a nice better human being it's about being more effective because what you're going to find when you really hunger for that kind of feedback you actually are better equipped to be able to press your case the next time and win gracefully tell you a quick little story one city I was city manager in that you'd all recognize had a council election and four council members turned over in a very bloody election we brought in Lao sumac as the facilitator we're in a setup like this the four new council members are on this side the five existing ones are on this side I'm with the mayor down at the end and Lyle's up here in the open U and he says okay we're about ready to get started and this is right after the election we're about ready to get started anybody have anything you want to say before we get started anything you want to share and my 29 year old young mayor Pro tem puts his hand in the air he was one of the five and he looks across at the four and he said the four of you did a great job getting your message out getting your voters out you're to be commended for running a great campaign there's only one thing you need to learn to be successful as a city council member and that's how to count to five I've got five you've got four y'all can go home right now because anything you want I'm gonna kill so how you how you interact in winning and losing in Victory and defeat actually lays the foundation for long-term success or long-term failure and friction and then build trust constantly I'll let you read this sometimes we do stuff that we act like is trying to build trust when it's really not everything you do every action you take every word you utter you ought to be asking the question is the way I'm handling this with my colleagues and with staff enhancing their trust of me as a leader is it contr is it putting money in my trust bank so to speak but what is it what what time is it am I over already I got 15. okay perfect so when we talk about that getting down into practical what does this really look like to become a trust-based leader in very practical terms number one the and these are these are 11 commitments that you as an elected official if you'll walk the talk of these 11 things in how you operate as a governance team you will transform how much fun you're having how satisfying it is and how much impact you're having number one base my decisions on the Next Generation more than the next election committed to the ideal that my loyalty must be to the entire Community both now and in the future and not merely to those who got me elected number two focus on Mission Vision and values as The Benchmark for my decisions and recognize that my responsibility is pursuit of the greatest good for the entire community and not the satisfaction of any particular group's agenda number three make decisions based on fact-based evidence and not allow myself to be manipulated into bad decisions for the future based on the decibel level of critics number four recognize that it takes a smart person to know where they're stupid and have the wisdom to be smart accordingly I will value those who have the courage to tell me what they really think and will listen sincerely to those who disagree with me to truly understand their perspective recognizing that understanding other perspectives makes me a better leader number five I'll embrace my responsibility to govern rather than to manage recognizing that if I'm doing staff's job I'm not doing my job while also in understanding and embracing the appropriately exercise governance role of holding staff accountable number six place a greater emphasis on Solutions than on problems while refusing to offer Solutions until I understand the problem number seven understand that Mutual trust is the foundation for everything and that if I refuse to trust others they'll be unable to trust me number eight protect the Integrity of the process more than the rightness of my position I will fight hard for my issue but then unify behind the governing body when the decision is made because the decision was made with Integrity of process even if I disagree with the outcome number nine understand that my deeply held beliefs values and positions will be strengthened not compromised by courteous respectful and civil discourse I will not treat someone as the enemy just because we disagree number 10 I will treat everyone with dignity and respect because of who I am as a leader not because of how they treat me or what I think about them and number 11 I'll be a role model for civility I will not treat my colleagues or staff in any way that I would be embarrassed if my five-year-olds treated someone the same way and then finally never forget it's not about me it's not about now and it never is if you just get this one piece right it's not about me it's not about now if that becomes your Guiding Light everything else actually falls into place everything else we've talked about is encapsulated in this my time is just about out but any questions conversation about this we got off to a little late start this morning yes ma'am I'll just raise a a comment may not be a question but uh the national league of cities as well as tml are both dealing with Civility and so it is an issue that is impacting governments all around the nation is that your website there are government resource.com yes ma'am okay I'll be looking at it and sharing it with NLC but just know that no matter what you hear about Texas there's a problem everywhere so absolutely and so we do business with local governments in 45 or six states it doesn't matter whether it's a red state or a blue State a red City and a blue State a blue City and a red sea you know any combination you want to get this is all Universal stuff everybody's dealing with the same set of issues the same turmoil the same pain points absolutely any other questions or comments before I pass it back to Hillary all right appreciate it very much and Hillary now Young have the legend please no thanks Ron um so I I gave a presentation last week it was here in Fort Worth my days are all confused but it was referencing some statistics from Pew research that were released last year and it basically said that you have federal government very little trust from the public state government a little more equal getting to be pretty 50 50. local government there's still a pretty good spread where there is still trust in local government obviously the political wins that are blowing all around us higher than us farther and wider than us are influencing what's happening in our communities but you know in in talking about what Ron was conveying we live in a world where every decision that you make is going to be a 50 50 split just the way it is um you're it's it's never going to be the strongest Victory or the the strongest loss that you might anticipate we live in a world that is divided and so these guiding lights these ideas that that it's taking yourself taking your personality taking your uh you know uh personal biases out of it and really trying to focus on that long-term Vision what is the absolute best decision for the community I serve is such an important concept specifically in the environment that we're in politically these days so it's time for a break we'll stop with that and then we'll come back and start talking about our strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats we'll take um let's come back at uh 10 25 does that work it's a little over 15 minutes that's good okay congratulations I think we're just I think we're ready to get started again I don't know where everybody went see Gina and Leonard yes Carlos just stepped out and said he'd be back in like three minutes okay perfect I thought okay he was in the windowsill okay perfect thank you Ron we lost Carlos we're just gonna wait for him notes okay we got this I trust you are we I think we can reconvene yes we've got Quorum I know Carlos is coming in in just a minute Gina's right here so we're good here okay so what's next um before lunch we have a hard break at 11 30 for lunch so I will keep you on track for that um but we are going to get started with our SWOT analysis so when I spoke to each of you independently I asked you for what you believe today that Fort Worth strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats were we do this I did this in this way specifically so that I could get your unfiltered opinions and then we could consolidate those into like um ideas uh there are quite a few of them up here but what we want to do is sort of walk through these and explore them to frame the conversation we're going to have after lunch about setting priorities so this is going to be a conversation stational we want to participate in this and so we will just start with strengths and what I think would be a really useful exercise is for staff to understand what you view as a body are the strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats so we'll start to try to prioritize these I just alphabetized them so that there was no priority given before we got here but if there are any that aren't there or any that you think warrants some exploration we will work through that as a group as well so we'll start with strengths so what was identified by the group was accessibility to the public meaning governance or government accessibility to the public amenities having a lot of big city amenities locally bright Minds both on Council and on staff there was an overwhelming feeling that you had a lot of of bright thinkers big thinkers amongst the group um development process improvements that have been made and you'll see that appear again where there's still a little bit of work to go but they felt that that was a strength right now fiscal Health having the financial capacity or resources to do a lot of of what you you choose to do or wish to do generational uh interests meaning people who have lived here for a long time so whether it's you know second generation third generation or um uh you know institution kind of uh uh generational interest Landmark institutions um I we the the city manager actually just talked about one that will be coming here in the future the law school the new buildings um I would say Joe T Garcia's that's my Landmark institution um and then public-private Partnerships and then a strong City Identity meaning the culture of Fort Worth the the history of Fort Worth the heritage of Fort Worth so if we look at this list and we think about what the strengths are that are the most present to the group as a whole let's start trying to itemize what we think should be leaned into that's what streaks are they're the things you build upon the things that kind of you can you can utilize to your advantage as you're trying to move through what the next segment of this is which would be priorities so does anyone have a very strong opinion about on that strengths list what the number one um item would be I what would you place first what do you think is the most uh present or important strength is it too small sorry yes Strong City Identity okay yeah the multiplier effect I think that's true and then I also think the funny thing about Strong City Identity within the city it's a strength but outside of Fort Worth outside of Texas really maybe that's a weakness because enough people don't know about who we are as a city once they get here they understand it yeah I think I told a lot of y'all in interviews I'm from two hours south of here and I have always had this very strong feeling for Fort Worth there's something about it that is very welcoming and it has you know that some of you mentioned that you know Town feel but in a in a metropolitan way and you're growing so I I've always had a strong Affinity so I'm a fan that's what you're saying um but I could I understand what you're saying about it may not go much farther than than Texas per se so what else is on this list that we think could be leaned into is what sorry what else is on the list that you would lean into as a string I I would say fiscal health is really important uh without that you know a lot of things of course wouldn't be possible so um that's a real strength of our city I'm not necessarily answering your question but I did want a clarification under threats School issues can you expound on that a little bit I mean you know if we all have ideas but I'd like to hear yeah we'll get there there was a um there was an idea that there was some um uh what's the word I'm looking for uh lack of trust in maybe Public School it was public schools I mean there being some issues with with people um finding deficiencies in that system I think there's there may be some stuff going on like bigger than what I'm aware of but that's what it was okay but to answer your question looking under there I think there's a bullet point uh least I thought there was there's something related to uh identity uh there's a city yeah Strong City Identity I think that goes again to uh our economic uh Vitality you know in footing you know we've talked about that before in strategic plans and that does have a lot of tie-ins to you know what we can do not just from a capital standpoint from the city but it affects other areas foreign so for me I really like the landmark institutions and actually think they tie with both Michael and Maddie's points for the public private Partnerships and their strong identity we're Cowtown I mean that's nationally known well recognized and the things that make us Cowtown the rodeo the stock show the north side you know the Stockyards all of those things are public-private Partnerships all the things that have made us great and given us our strong identity and have progressed our heritage are those things and I think that's our biggest strength is kind of the the cross-section of those major points I'll give you mine now your your board is not old eyes friendly I'm sorry I'll blow it up you want me to go over there no no it's the color the the contrast I'm learning what happens when your eyes age but uh I'm I'm comfortable voicing Strong City Identity and what I think about is all the times that Fort Worth has been featured at South by Southwest uh whenever I meet people from around the city they ask to do you already ride horses and I tell them yes and they because they don't think that that's going to happen but uh we our logo our presence has been on ESPN and I think back to when we had a Super Bowl when it the whole area froze up yeah we had a Sundance Square as our backdrop and so I think we have a very strong identity yeah and uh I also agree with what the landmarks I'm a packing house baby and so when when people think of Fort Worth because of the Dallas TV show you know we've got the cattle and this is perception but you know I would I would say Strong City Identity I think you'll find answers pretty much tied to all of our professions in my background was Communications and so I look at things very differently but I would be surprised if you got us out of our wheel box in wheelhouse and what we would say but for me it's what people see what they talk about when I'm out and about and we've been very strategic you know in doing that even mayor Maddie goes to Austin and we set up shop at the uh what's that place called The I used to remember Where's Robert Stearns what's it I see SC that I yeah so we're making a name and that's the the group that brings conferences you know to our city and shopping centers development so I'm I'm good with giving you identity as my offering I would say it's also identity but I think I think I'd like to expand identity as a whole like the city of Fort Worth whether that's Cowtown to you or it's you know south side or Panther City or whatever we want to call it our identity as a city is really really heavily tied up in our neighborhoods um and so I think that's probably the biggest strength is that internal identity as well within the city so what neighborhood you came from you grew up in what neighborhood you live in where you went to school or all um questions that you know we ask each other when we meet someone from Fort Worth well where'd you go to high school or whatever do you live in and so I think it's that internal sense of identity as well that really makes the city really strong that sense of community yeah well and that the generational influence of people who have grown up here a place kind of into that as well and holding on tightly to this area or this neighborhood so I I feel like we we all feel strongly about the identity of Fort Worth and that it is a strength and something that we should um uh try to incorporate in probably most facets of what we'll talk about later today is there anything that you have thought of since um foreign you don't show our diversity and you know in in spite of public Strife that makes headlines uh diversity in Fort Worth uh makes us very different in a very positive way when other cities around me have been in I think about Dallas and so one thing that we're proud of is that we're not Dallas but it's the way our diversity up until recent years you know has been featured so I still say diversity is a strength okay anybody else so if number one is City Identity what what do we think would be number two we mentioned public-private Partnerships fiscal Health Landmark institutions and now diversity does anyone have a strong opinion of what else should be kind of on that top three list of strings well I think to Leonard's Point earlier if you don't have fiscal Health as a city entity you don't you can't have public-private Partnerships you can't do any that no one will do business with the city of Fort Worth I think that's a testament to The Faith from the private sector it's the biggest endorsement they're willing to partner with the city of Fort Worth that you know Dickies Arena was born out of that idea the zoo Brit and now Texas A M and if you didn't trust this city as an organization you wouldn't do those things so to me those almost are tied and they're sort of linked together okay but so fiscal health and Trust in city government yeah exactly anybody else any other thoughts maybe a comment yeah it's not on the list but um I think it's related and uh exhibited through uh maybe our Council and mayors that there is a willingness and attitude um by leadership and I think the private sector as well um to lean into change to lean into Innovation and economic development I know we'll talk about but uh I don't think there's an attitude that we're deeply rooted in the past we're we acknowledge the past acknowledge the DNA and the features I think of that we've just articulated that are some of our strengths but I think there's a desire for advancement right which I think is important yeah it's important when you're growing too foreign all right so I feel like we've got a pretty good idea of where we have some consensus amongst drinks so now let's move to weaknesses um we have budgetary limitations uh development process still needing some additional improvements following other large cities rather than sort of charting our own course there was that sentiment I heard a few times lack of communication and engagement both internally and externally lack of trust and I think that was amongst the body and maybe permeated slightly down to the staff level at certain areas but primarily amongst the the group needing more public sector support disparities in neighborhoods uh you know Financial injection of financial resources and or amenities um partisanship uh becoming you know more pronounced which is a product of what we're all dealing with nationally prioritization by Council feeling that there hasn't been the either the appropriate level of work to really say these are our priorities and and affirming those so that everybody is playing from the same rulebook reluctance to modernize um the I heard a couple of people say the way we've always done it in some different parts of of the the city organization and then an unwillingness to hear opinions of others and that was both to understand the full perspective of the public based on whatever personal issue and then also to hear peers around the dice opinions and respect that they are entitled to those so those were that's the background on the weaknesses and so what we want to do is we want to go through the same process and try to identify what really are the top weaknesses that we need to try to fix so I will open it there so I'll go first um I think the honestly the biggest challenge that that we have right now our biggest weaknesses are inability to well manage growth and I tie that primarily to developers coming to the city and trying to go through the development process it ends up being challenging uh they have surprises as we just have with their own City Hall and and it's kind of a case study it's something we need to work on as we have more people coming we need to really understand how to facilitate the process and really facilitate development to accommodate this growth and not be behind the curve yeah well and y'all have a huge growth Corridor don't you that's I heard a statistic um some time ago that said that the growth Corridor would allow Fort Worth to be bigger than Dallas someday is that is that accurate yes that's that's incredible that's a tremendous especially considering the fact that annexation has has been hampered and those things by the the ledge but um so if we're talking about the development process and um and managing that growth um is it the is it the system that's in place is it is it managing expectations do you have a little bit more or personal opinion is it's kind of all of the above okay it's the velocity of changes that are being requested the velocity of development that's coming the city is growing and we're working hard to expand our capacity to deal with it David noted in the budget uh significantly accommodated more resource to to allocate to this problem I feel it give it to me uh so I think if we're going to talk about the development process as a weakness it would be very limiting to talk about the process within the department itself I think that that is a known you know issue for that but uh that's small in in the big picture of like what we're talking about an overall weakness if we're going to talk about our development process I think it's more than just a department but it's how we develop as a city not just the mechanisms of the permitting and the people you talk to and what departments you go to but we don't have a growth policy right we do have a massive growth Corridor and we saw in our last bond election most of that most of the bond went to to the north because you know the inner city is now subsidizing that massive growth because we didn't keep up with it initially and so it's our development process not just you know how permits are allowed but how we think of growth and development as a whole from that you know 30 000 feet perspective not just how fast we can get a certificate of occupancy right well and I understand there's a comprehensive Plan update is that did I understand that correct coming with a with a more robust engagement component so so I mean those are as as good as they are upheld right and so that but that's a great first step in trying to to lay out the plan so that the we're talking about you know sometimes we get in the symptoms and not the root cause and so it sounds like you know we've got a symptom that that is is current and and a nuisance but we also need to look at the bigger picture root cause I'm so glad you said that I I think though with along with Elizabeth said it's sometimes hard I'll admit this for me it's hard to tell the public whether you're in the North or in the inner city inside the Loop 820 um and with confidence I believe it with confidence we're on the right track the the planning we are doing as a city of Fort Worth is playing catch-up um whether it's your bond issuance or our focus on Pago that we're moving in the right direction they're just a lot of fatigue especially in specific communities of like well you you said that before or show it to me but I think finally in the next few years especially that confidence will be realized in actual infrastructure but to live at Elizabeth's point you can't be complacent it's going to take a remarkable amount of continual planning and and investment in staff too to do their jobs in each department to keep us in the right path because it's we are fortunate the amount of growth we've had and if you're not a city in the United States right now that's growing and thriving you're in real trouble however that came with a lot of responsibility especially in the last 20 years I do think it left city the city of Fort Worth on its heels and so now we're kind of in the middle of the catch-up phase yeah Gina was going to say something one of one of you mentioned in our interview that um you know growth is happening and if you just allow growth to happen but you don't deal with the infrastructure now you have to deal with the angry citizens in those new neighborhoods whose roads are torn up to try to get there or who have low water pressure or whatever those you know nuisance factors are and so trying to balance staying ahead of it to the degree that's responsible and the you know public-private Partnerships or however you make it work is is so smart and and so hopefully this process will will produce a good product for you all I'll let something for you and and this is a just kind of tied into what Elizabeth had stated our development process system depends on several departments and when it gets to the nuts and bolts of getting a permit or a green light it can be held up because the right people are not at the table right and that that really impacts us when it comes to trees water sewer what have you and when David came here we knew that departments were siled off and we've been working against the against that but you you got to have people at the table at the right time and so how we how you bring that Unity that unified team together but they all work for different people is a challenge and so yeah that that would be one of my observations anything else yeah oh come in um and I and I do think it may um be in the weakness category but also become an opportunity and um and I think just as somebody coming in and learning a lot about uh government um there's clear municipal government um silos and I'm looking at Gina because I'm going to mention the RTC is that a lot of the things that we are accomplishing have to be done with a bigger team right and it's not just the city and there's other players in in you know uh in the roles to get things done like infrastructure like we're talking about and I just don't think people know enough about that and understand that the city is not necessarily responsible for every bit of the change that we all want to see and to me that's kind of a weakness opportunity but certainly a frustration for a lot of people because they're just not an understanding of that dynamic Communications which is what I really did not want to bring up you know but Communications internal and external you know continues to be a challenge you know the more we grow the more frustrating it is uh having a public that is so busy they they don't have time to study government to see what department to go to but I will tell you I've seen people come to City Hall angry as all get out because they lost their driver's license right and you know you got this public that doesn't understand this uh governance but our communication system doesn't make it just easy but nothing is easy and so that that in itself is very frustrating yeah and it's a complicated system you have I mean like it there are so many moving Parts in city government then you have other government agencies that we used to have people coming for marriage licenses all the time and we're like sorry wrong place um but but absolutely and so educating the public in a way that they can understand what they need to understand without it just becoming noise because they're inundated what else is on this list we talked a lot about the development process and growth um and so what else do we think is a is a weakness that we need to overcome I'll go ahead and just say School issues again you know elaborate on that I know that um the Viewpoint is we all have our lanes right but I don't think it's inappropriate you know for mergers within that Lane right because we both have shared interests the school must produce students that are competent and uh ready you know for the next academic level because eventually they'll be in the job market right locally or maybe abroad and and that has a bottom line effect on us here here at the city level uh Workforce is very important anybody else what Rises to the top of that list I think on neighborhood disparities I think a positive is that we've acknowledged that and worked incredibly hard among every department but it may be a weakness is are we doing enough right and what type of level of investment both from the city and from the private sector are needed to revitalize and refocus at neighborhoods that need it the most and We Know It Works we know that even a nominal amount of support can be really transformative so you know just answering those questions and making sure that that theme carries through in all of our investments and importantly maybe in future budget Cycles and then partisanship that's true across the country earlier what Ron was saying that that happens you know Civility and those conversations but um is can we be a better example of what it looks like to govern um especially in a highly polarized even County right now and how does Fort Worth stand out as a place to just get things done and ignore the partisanship I think is very important right and regrettably there's probably not a great example across the country necessarily so we just kind of have to chart our own path let me jump in with one very tangible suggestion of how you become that role model because your citizens are looking for the cues of how we operate in a council meeting the single most powerful thing you can do to Telegraph civility the normal human tendency is if Leonard and Gina are on opposite sides of an issue and Leonard's supporters show up and they start going after Gina the tendency is for if if um if Alan is aligned with Gina the tendency is for Alan to defend Gina does that make sense that's our normal political instinct if you want to turn it all upside down role modeling what actually happens is that if it's Leonard's supporters that are going after Gina Leonard speaks up and says to my supporters you know I agree with you on this issue you know I agree with you you know I want to win this this on your behalf but you need to understand a higher bar is how we interact with each other and you need to understand if you act abusively as much as I disagree with Gina if you act abusively towards her if you continue this way I'm going to leave the Diaz and you'll have one less vote to make this happen yeah now that takes a lot of courage to do that but if you want to transform the ability you reward Civility and penalize in a positive construction you don't yell at people and all of that but you simply say to my supporters the moral High Ground never comes from standing up to your opponents the moral High Ground only comes when you stand up to your supporters and it's not about agreeing or disagreeing it's about behavior and how inner how the Intercourse takes place does that make sense that one thing will transform the sense of the city council not just how you act but being to your point mayor the role model that says this is the way we behave as a community this is our expectation right uh what's your advice there too using your example when Leonard at the diet attacks Gina from the diocese what's your advice to this body on how that behavior um foreign it happens in some councils no no question so two or three things one is and I can't remember the name of the book but there is a book out in the business world that basically says organizations become what they talk about so part of it is preemptively that you are constantly talking about your you're embedding the cultural DNA as a team on how we interact with each other anytime you're trying to change behavior in the middle of a mud fight it's not nothing nothing you do is going to be very effective so part of what you do is you constantly begin to look for ways to not just instill expectations but to take pride in those expectations and to look for ways to build Bridges so for example positive reinforcement is still real is that if if Leonard has gotten carried away instead of attacking Leonard what you do is you openly say to Gina I really want to let you know I appreciate things got a little heated there and I appreciate the way that you handled that with Grace positive that that it makes it real difficult we're really picking on Leonard it if if you go after Leonard In the Heat of the Moment his human tendency is to lash back in like fashion but if what you do is you compliment her for handling the tense situation with Grace that's the best way to squirt water on the fire does that make sense always look for a positive way to reinforce the message that you want instead of lashing back and here's what happens is the more you do that my apologies again the Dumber you make Leonard look okay [Laughter] in other words the more the more that the council as a whole the more Leonard becomes an outlier in his behavior the less influence he has and the less influence he has in the community everybody remember what we talked about individually that when you know everybody can see through you being fake or whatever same thing is true with that attitude that hatefulness that you know that sort of thing so what you want to do is constantly focus on are we reinforcing the kind of behavior we want more than are we penalizing the kind of behavior we don't want it's the old you know you get more flies with honey than vinegar thing and it and it really does it really does work but but it's also it needs to be coupled with you're constantly looking for opportunities to talk about this is who we want to be and looking for opportunities to let fellow council members know you really appreciate how they handled a particular situation and and the more they believe in it the more passionate they are and have handled it with Grace the more it warrants really letting them know because it was hard for them does that make sense all right so now let's talk about opportunities so these are the little arrow means this is how we push it forward this is where we're this is where we're headed in the future so what are those opportunities that we see today that we should be latching on to in the next to three years um that that you all see so um the those that were offered were bold decisions we have the opportunity with a young tenured Council um to make some bold decisions um not rooted in the the way things always have been or were um and so maybe there's some potential uh to to take a further step than what we might be comfortable with continued growth and you'll see that show up on the threats as well Economic Development education this was both um there was an opportunity for uh uh K 12 if I'm saying that right uh to be improved but then also the um Advanced learning opportunities that are that are abounding in this area right now Innovation taking those next steps so I I've done some work with a neighbor of yours to the East and they were looking at the Google model of 10x so not just thinking about how I can make something 10 percent better which is the kind of normal thinking is like how do I improve whatever this current process is by 10 how do I make it 10 times better so that's where your power kind of comes in and so Innovation you'll hear this again from me here in a little bit but Innovation thinking about what can we do that really changes things um for for the better of the future Panther Island was mentioned by a few members setting clear priorities basically saying this is where we're headed and this is what we want staff to focus on uh the unique character of Fort Worth which we talked about in the strengths further utilization of City facilities and there was there was a thinking that some of our facilities are underutilized and so what can we do to use those already their reinforces in a in a way that makes them more accessible or more useful to the communities they serve and then youth education was touched on a minute ago that says okay you're bringing up these these youths in this environment and so how do you get them to get engaged and then to remain here or come back here after they after they grow up so that's where that list went and so let's talk about what we think kind of our top three are as a group with opportunities I think it's our bold choices our bold decisions the first one we've made some recently with our um future city hall and the building that we're sitting in today will be drastically different in the next five years and those have been pretty bold and we are seeing rapid growth and so I think we have an opportunity now to do some things a m that um that set us up for generations to come we're kind of at a a inflection point yeah uh to me Panther Island ranks right up there because it's so transformative um to to the city of downtown and otherwise I think not kind of along the same vein if you just want a Economic Development I mean just completely at least from my district to everything West and how we're marketing some of that property etc for big transformative change jobs Etc uh one other that I I think is worth mentioning because it is related to Economic Development and I think it's worthwhile to unpack that a little bit what what are the areas that um we can lean into specifically and I think the mobility and Innovation Zone that Alliance is working on is a huge opportunity not only for those the businesses that may be created there but for the jobs in the tax base that may come along with it but it's a very unique forward-thinking industry maybe to maybe to help Encompass all the things have been mentioned is that this is my observation right now there is more new investment whether it's investment from within Fort Worth or outside Fort Worth than I've ever seen in the city and that's in almost every single sector and it's an interest because of our high growth potential a business friendly environment and in a city that has traditionally kind of been counted out or maybe not counted at all and so because of those things you're seeing a huge amount of momentum that to me is the opportunity for us as city leaders and and capitalizing on that momentum just breeds hopefully in a smart and manageable way more yes I would mention education I think we have seen some incredible advancements both in recent years and coming in the area of secondary education I think we're still challenged with our primary with their K-12 in the city of Fort Worth as a whole and not just Fort Worth ISD but all of the ISD We Touch and I think you know mayor has created an excellent initiative there and I think it's a real opportunity for us to continue to find ways to engage and help improve our school districts because we we do have a significant deficit right now you gave you all a big assist this year didn't they yeah they did yeah hey World we're here yes I think it's important for me to point out too and all of us this entire body has really refocused and helped work alongside education I don't want the city I certainly personally don't want to be known for pointing the finger the point is that for the first time possibly private leaders Business Leaders and public leaders are all saying we are part of the solution right that we need to be working alongside educational leaders from Early Education K-12 post-secondary in recognizing that we probably for too long have just said that's your problem not ours educate our kids and in an environment where it's so high growth you have 12 school districts and an infinite level of opinions it has been easier for us to not be involved and I think everyone around this table deserves credit for trying to be part of the solution and it's infinitely more important right now I've had a conversation with a teacher last night about just how exhausting it is you know he's teaching three additional classes this year because future shortages and just stepping up and it's working a second job because you don't get paid enough and those are those are realities for our educational system so to Allen's Point yes we have deficiencies but the city needs to be part of the solution not part of the problem and I'll add one more that will I hadn't thought about to bring up as an opportunity but there continues to be historical absence of city-led commercial investment in the inner cities and the expectations that are expected to come from those who would invest are unrealistic we have detriments to development throughout our inner city communities but the city could do more and I've had this conversation with Edie before I I don't want that department waiting for the phone call I want that department to be more aggressive in going out and seeking and I've shared that I think that's a good point Gina and to complement the city staff and economic development departments Neighborhood Services they have started to do things differently and then diversity inclusion Department with with Christina Brooks you can point to examples like CFI friendly the work that Martha is leading in Economic Development with Main Street America those are just two examples to force the city to think differently about what we should be doing in community but to Gina's point we need to strive to do more and give our staff the resources to do that and that takes this body being Visionary and taking a risk probably in some ways where you might get flat for are you being fiscally responsible is that really the role of government but I do believe in specific neighborhoods we are going to have to do those things and to really drive that type of opportunity and listen to community at the same time so so that well we were gonna we're going to get far more into the economic development piece of this because it was number one across the body that was the number one uh priority uh seven of nine of you ranked it at the top of your your list so well I haven't finished oh yes I wanted to give kudos to the city manager for starting the neighborhood Improvement strategy and what that did was go in into areas where there had been historical neglect and we came in with great Zeal the program continues now it is so popular people who don't even work in government talk about it and so we've started it but we can't just let it stop with the basics Basics being sidewalks street lights trash pickup and overgrown weeds you know weeds we have to make sure that that department is as concerned and Zella says we are so that that's important that uh I don't know if you know about that neighborhood Improvement strategy I I know what they will I'll just give you an example of the things that were loaded away and of course David my numbers are still old and where where is Victor uh the last number that I had will tell you that we put in 7 500 linear feet of new sidewalks in stop six we probably doubled that by now because again my numbers are old uh we we picked up tons of trash and debris we put in brand new street lights we put in or what we removed concrete slabs where homes had been built because if you're trying to get folk to build new homes in an old area what's underground is outdated and so it would cost about five grand to take up an old foundation so we we did our part on this end but we need a more aggressive approach toward bringing development and cdfi is going to be key to that and I read about their new leadership recently I think this Council should have known about that sooner I didn't know about it until I read about it in the paper and so that that's another another reason to get everybody on the same page but you know that that brings up a good point that you know the word disparity was used a lot across neighborhoods across districts um but if there is you can look at disparity in infrastructure and that's one conversation but if there's also disparity in Economic Development efforts if there's also disparity in you know what education engagement if there's also disparity in these things those are things that can be baked into your system that say we address disparity as a root cause and so when we look at whatever this problem is we integrate the the bigger picture look to ensure that disparity is is being at least evaluated if not addressed I'm going to say something I'm trying to say eloquently so as to not offend anyone we talk a lot about disparities and we should but I think this body sometimes doesn't focus on the actual solutions that this body should be do we're focused on to solve disparity right what are the fundamental things a city government should be stepping up to focus on to help solve some of those things so think about stop six when we started the neighborhood Improvement program had the city been focused on those really basic fundamental things for the decades before that would we have had those challenges that's a great question to answer and because of the politics of the day it's easy to get distracted and not focus on the things that we actually can sell solve and change for right because sometimes they're not the sexy topics right and it's not always just throwing money at it exactly exactly what else do we have do we have anything else um under opportunities that we want to consider when we look at the priorities okay so now let's move on to threats we had cyber security hacking as we become more dependent on technology that that rises um to to a Threat Level Economic Development not being as competitive as possible there were specific I think there was a specific um uh case that was referenced by quite a few of you however I think the the the actual root of it was more do we have the absolute best tools we can have for economic development and do we have the right incentives in place for today's economic development environment um again failure of council to set clear expectations so we're we're not charging in any specific direction we're just kind of trying trying to do everything for everyone focusing on the past rather than the future so you know some there's this burn it down versus build it up mentality and so there are some people who want to focus on burning it down still even though it's been burned for years rather than now shifting our Focus to the to the building it up and that's where we're going to go this afternoon is let's really look forward and what we can do moving forward um the infrastructure and maintenance so that was both building new infrastructure keeping up with the demands for new infrastructure but then also the maintenance requirements for old infrastructure being just as important making decisions for today and not tomorrow so again why we're here not engaging the community enough at the right times in the process so we may have the the public hearing but it's after all of this other stuff has transpired and they weren't aware of it now they feel like they're you know not getting the full picture and and some of it was um uh Council as well feeling that they weren't getting the information when they would have wanted to in the process so that they could deal with their communities and engage with them knowingly School issues again um yeah sure when it comes to counsel feeling we haven't gotten information I think what happens is Staff does a wonderful job at preparing and they work tirelessly on the issues that we've asked them to focus on but what happens by the time they've gotten it fine-tuned to you know this Crystal form of jewelry and it gets to us we're expected to drink from a water hydrant and if there's a need to bring us along gradually and so but you know I stress the importance that staff is prepared but counsel needs to have a step in there before we pull the trigger on things and so that that's what happens in that area for me anyway and that points to process is there something in the process that could be shifted or adjusted a little bit that would make that uh feel like less of a time crunch or or a you know forced decision School issues again uh yes unmanaged growth so I mean we've seen kind of growth throughout the this and then Workforce and that was internal to the city staff was the primary focus of that comment how are we going to recruit and retain and how are we making sure that we as as city government are setting the example or keeping up with what what's going on in the rest of the world with pay benefits all of that sort of stuff so there was a concern that that recruiting new Talent OR retaining current Talent could could become a struggle um here moving forward so let's talk through threats um and who what do we think is is the top one that we need to be trying to strategize to avoid go for it well I'm going to pick making decisions for today not tomorrow because that was mine but um no I mean I think probably the biggest threat to us as a body and and our residences um short-sightedness and hindsight's always 20 20. sometimes we make the best decision for today and then something happens and it you know it wasn't and I don't think that we keep that lens present enough when we're making decisions we're fixing a problem today but creating one in the future and so I think that's where staff can be helpful in their expertise guiding us on decisions you know this is what we've seen this happen or can happen or this is what it can lead to not to put it all on staff we should be doing it too but um that's probably one of my biggest concerns but it's the I'm focused on patching the pothole rather than looking at a system where potholes don't exist like in my bit could I build roads differently where I don't have this kind of thinking so but it's it's very difficult because it's like they're coming at you and so I got to get that you know I and staff gets it too what else we got um when we talk about Economic Development not being as competitive as possible what were you hearing there uh can you describe so I guess it came up with three at least three of the interviews there was a specific economic development project that apparently chose another city recently I don't I don't know what the specific project was but there was a concern or a thought that we might not have the um the best incentives that we could have to have attracted that business or that our processes were maybe deficient in some way that made them choose somewhere else I mean it could have just been I don't know the the background but um it was really it was kind of specific to that but then it was um there was something else uh uh it'll come to me but it was it was related to that issue kind of specifically okay because I I think it was recruitment of a specific types of businesses that that some thoughts should be put into what are those sectors that we want to specifically go after and and build the incentives or or um uh case that would attract those types of businesses okay what I was thinking about in terms of Economic Development was clearly understanding our competition you know there's lots of different things we need to talk about in Economic Development I think we will but competition is certainly one of them yeah so maybe I have a different perspective because I've worked so much in this I don't have the same threat opinion about academic development I think it's timing and I think for Fort Worth and Luna and I were talking about this yesterday this is our time and I think we do have the right systems in place maybe with with a few additional tools into Leonard's Point knowing your competition but sometimes it's been really easy in Fort Worth to be frustrated because Texas has been so successful in Economic Development among our large cities but we are the fifth largest city in Texas so how do we compete within our own State as well as outside so I'll just leave that there um maybe on threat that's not on this list is how are we preserving our built environment our natural landscape how is the city making sure that Fort Worth is not all concrete we can the whole staff here knows what we're doing to protect that but I want this this body to be thinking about in this individual districts how can they be Visionary to make Fort Worth one of the most beautiful preserved landscapes despite the fact that we're also one of the fastest growing cities in the country and that's going to take every Department really working together and we've already touched on some of those already so well and then the outside forces being either policied into doing what is needed or seeing the value in in what is needed to to you know have green space and and all those kinds of things or invest in them what else I just may add another thing because I do think it's important and it's come up uh on our uh entrepreneur and Innovation committee uh meetings and that is that it's these things are to me all tied where from education to economic development that spectrum and and certainly one point that is within that Spectrum um to put it maybe not very uh eloquently is we've got to be sure we are known as a fun city as well if we're going to maintain kids here after they graduate and go into the workforce so it's you know we're we're talking about very serious important things but there's also a threat of not communicating in my opinion of the lifestyle aspect to what Fort Worth is and that this is a really fun place to be it's great for families it's great in so many different ways we touched on sort of the cowboy culture type things as well but um those are really important I think for or Economic Development and achieving those goals by retaining people here it's just not paychecks and jobs are obviously extremely important but there's also got to be a lifestyle that people appreciate and want and um and and to me simply but just it's it's a fun place to be the hospitality industry entertainment industry all of that music those are all arrows arrows in our quiver and outside influx of money is is crucial to your financial solvency I would assume it's got to be a large part of it anybody else threats everybody wants lunch I got it it's an observation building on what you just said I travel all over the United States with cities my whole life is cities there's maybe five or six cities in the nation that I would describe as having a soul and Fort Worth is one of those cities there is a there here that not many places have I think one of your threats when you look at what has taken place there was an article just this week with one of our cities to the South that was always identified that way that has lost some of that momentum that sense of identity you've got to be cautious about not losing Who You Are if you want to retain that sense of a soul that very very few cities in the nation I mean I'd I'd say five or six it's a very small short list that I think Fort Worth joins with and so I would say one of your threats is the stuff you're describing that you love about Fort Worth is don't take it for granted you know be very intentional about going we've got to protect the thing that makes us awesome and not take it for granted or we end up losing it yes I think selling our worth our Fort Worth came up as well like how do we Market in in a way that says businesses come here people come here visitors come here I'm really taking a stronger and more strategic approach to to Really selling the worth yeah oh that's a good one selling the work uh you like that yeah that was good no but elaborating a little bit on all of yeah I'm trying to mark that really quickly trademark that no but I think there's an idea too we've talked a lot about the the cowboy aspect or whatever that's an important part of Fort Worth but I think that the the idea of selling it and marketing is that there's a place for everybody it might be you know South Side it might be East Side Etc there is a place for everybody and it's a win-win everybody just because one is winning doesn't mean someone else is losing and so that Soul really is there are a lot of different souls in Fort Worth that are doing their own thing making the city great so we probably have to do a better job as a city itself marketing all those people talking about those pieces and building all those pieces up so everybody really as we we say it but feels like this is their City too representative yeah and and with such strong neighborhood identities that all of you mentioned neighborhoods neighborhoods neighborhoods no other City I've ever been working with has ever said neighborhoods that much so it's very clearly something that's in the DNA of this this community and trying to figure out what those unique things are and not you know try to overshadow them um but play into them to the degree possible so why did we just do all of this because after lunch we're going to come back and talk about priorities and so I wanted you all to hear from each other where your perspectives were on strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats and then when we move into this next part of our discussion after lunch I promise I'm going to let you go um we will we'll start to talk about those priorities and start to build some of your goals from your perspective with these things in mind that you want staff to try to focus on or a plan toward moving forward so there is a means to an end here and I thank you for your participation and so we are going to break for lunch I think it's in the other room and I think we have an hour so we will all be back here at 12 30. check one two check one two check one two you don't hear it you had to put the headset on because you've got it check why did that go because check one two check one two SEC one two three good no I don't hear a thing oh no sorry check one two check one two one two three okay now make sure go here so bring that up yep but bring her mic yeah okay now where are you I'm on where are you I think we're ready to get started I want to come back in all right okay Hillary okay are we ready okay we are still on track um we're we're doing we're doing well on time so we'll just keep charging through um back to where we left off in our last session we were looking at strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats to kind of get you thinking about those areas that that real change could um could occur in your goal setting in your prioritization where do we really think that there is the most opportunity to push Fort Worth to the next uh level whatever that may be in whichever segment so we we ended with strengths the group as as a whole felt that the City Identity the identity of the neighborhoods was a definite strength the Public Public private Partnerships um fiscal uh uh um what was the word Health there we go and Trust in government came out Landmark institutions and then diversity the weaknesses were um the development process and growth management and and trying to to move that in a in a in a more strategic Direction Communications schools neighborhood disparities and uh that that was weaknesses opportunities opportunity for bold choices Panther Island Economic Development new investment and then addressing uh disparities in in Economic Development efforts it's a business friendly environment and then getting engaged in a solution for Education as an opportunity and then the threats were continuing to think of today versus tomorrow not considering Green Space beautification in decisions we're making and allowing there to be a degradation of the lifestyle that keeps people here brings people here wants makes people want to come here so just overarching those were some of the sentiments to keep in in the back of your mind as we move into this next segment so back to where we started today this strategic visioning Loop so we're here today for the circle part Council and Visions so when you look at this as a process a system as as Ron was describing to you it's a constant movement constant motion so if you think about how an issue gets to you oftentimes it's a citizen brings it to you and says hey there's an issue in this part of town that we want to address or it could be staff that says hey we have an issue with whatever this thing is and we need action here so then it's up to council to do what we're doing today and say okay does this fit within our priorities does this make sense for where we want to be going does um do I have any input into what a solution looks like um basically giving that strategic direction that Vision that Guidance the the overarching here is where we want to go but not necessarily dictating how we're going to get there so once Council receives it comes to whatever agreement of uh this is where we want to be in five years and so they hand it to staff staff creates a plan staff then brings it back to council to say this is what you said you wanted this is what we've proposed Council says yes that's absolutely it or makes whatever adjustments staff in with that affirmation is able to execute whatever that plan is and then in that process Council looks back after staff reports back or however you want to evaluate it and says yes this meets the expectations or no it doesn't staff then adjusts and then the cycle starts again so that what's meant by this is to say that it's not a one and done solution So today we're not going to solve every problem for Fort Worth for the rest of Eternity but what we can do is start moving towards solutions for the future the other thing that it points to is the fact that that this train is moving and so whether you were on it today or you're off it tomorrow the train is still moving and you have a staff that is depending on that train to go in a certain direction so if we're not saying hey staff this is where we're going and this is what our expectation is and and allowing them to to do what's necessary to keep that train moving they don't know where to go and so these competing interest these competing Identity or ideas make it very confusing and so it feels like nobody knows what we're doing or where we're going and so thinking about the system as you make these decisions and thinking about how important this Vision process is today is really what sets that emotion and the power that you all hold that staff doesn't hold is that you get to put those systems in place that long after you're gone potentially you're still making change or still making progress um and and so again this is I'm really proud to be part of this and I'm really glad that y'all are taking the time to do this and so now what we're going to do is transition into the actual strategic priority so that we can set those as a group and say yes this is what is important to us as a group that we want staff to focus on and then we're going to get a little bit more in depth where you're going to say if I could create real change in one year this is what it would be under this priority if I could create real change in three years this is what it would look like this is the outcome that I would want to see not how we're going to get there because that's what you hand to staff they're the ones who come back with the data they're the ones who come back with the resource request they are the ones who come back with the budget plans for you all to then affirm that that's where you want to go so when I did our interviews um with each of you I kept notes and I asked each of you what your top three strategic priorities were and this is what the outcome was most of you had similar sentiments um throughout this and so what this is in intended to show you is the dominance of of the opinion so Economic Development was seven of ten members said that that would be at the top in in the top three everybody had different ideas of what that was and so that's where your perspective is then going to come to the table here in our next segment but in general Economic Development seven of nine members said that's the that's important to us second one was quality of life that was five members five members said quality of life and some of them talked about you know neighborhood disparities some of them talked about Community facilities some talked about tourism some talked about you know various parts of that but five people um all agreed that quality of life should be in the top three Now we move down to infrastructure and growth those were both for each so four people put that on their list as as a top three importance and so I would I would challenge you to not just think about these as all being independent but some of them are interrelated so from my perspective as as a strategist I look at growth and I think oh that needs to be embedded in all of these other things right maybe it's not a standalone I'm not trying to lead you in that direction because it could be that that's very important to to itemize um on its own but some of these can be incorporated into others so what we're going to do here is is go through this after I finish going through this um the list of who voted for what and then we're going to figure out as a group what the top priorities really should be moving forward so for each infrastructure and growth and infrastructure was both current and future infrastructure so maintenance and new new build then we move down to transit public safety and engagement each had two and then education was one so in descending order uh that is what the group's priority look like so uh bringing this back I um I look at it and I think okay well that's pretty darn good I mean we've got one two three four five six seven eight which is as many members as we have so that that's a pretty good starting uh number but I want to talk through now where we think the priority really lies as a group and do we think that this is representative do we think some should be combined how do we get this list to something that we can hand to staff and say these are our strategic priorities and there's five of them or there's four of them I'm glad you're saying that because what what we say you know anecdotally spontaneously I hopefully will be different since we're all in this room together and knowing how the mayor has a focus on education I'm now a convert on you know joining that bandwagon it's it should force us to have some real dialogue as to what these priorities really are because I I can't believe that we would still have education at the bottom right and so I'm hoping we'll see that shipped up higher well and so I'll just pose this since you use that as an example is education part of quality of life absolutely is education part of economic development is education you know what I'm saying and so so it's not that necessarily the idea has to be singular because only one person said it it could be embedded in these others but we want to make sure that we note that so that staff is clear that we expect education to be part of whatever this the same thing with growth so that that's a perfect example I would agree with that when I talked about Economic Development because I was one of those people it was also including quality of life infrastructure education it was an overall a big part of that because we can't have continued Economic Development if we don't have a good educational system I think all of us understand that 100 I agree with that too and I don't know if this is helpful Hillary and how you want to lead us in this discussion but when I will see that list to me quality of life is at the top okay because if every decision we make in each of these categories is focused on a high quality of life for every resident then it translates into how you focus on Transit or infrastructure or growth or Economic Development and that's I've personally started to do that in the frame of mind especially how I communicate with people because it seems to translate with all audiences it makes them at ease with even a topic that maybe they don't really care about this is for quality of life this is why we want to make those Investments it feels inclusive to all populations versus exclusive when you just talk about big business or Economic Development Maybe so so is the rest go please ask questions so when we talk about education and then ultimately answer your question or go to the next step here I think in sort of giving directives that we can follow follow through on what is it we can actually do in as it relates to education so this might be a really long conversation but I'll be succinct um the way the city invests let's take neighborhoods for instance if you look at the connectivity between our schools that are struggling they are also in neighborhoods that are struggling they're in the same places we've started to make neighborhood Investments so just at a starting Place continuing what we're doing in neighborhood Improvement if that's all we did Leonard we're probably doing a large part of it the second piece is using the bully pulpit each of us possess as elected leaders to talk in a favorable way about what community needs to do to serve schools I mean I've had this conversation with all of you and you're committing to going to your schools more often knowing what they're doing talking to your school board members about resources because the greatest resource many of our our schools need are adults they need loving parents and people and community members to be more active in those in those schools and environments and the third piece is actually the way that we're reinvesting in community and how schools should be at the center of that and as fourth ISD is our largest ISD is not the only one they're really the ones looking at school closures which are sometimes really tough topics and what role we should play as city leaders to help them make those tough decisions but make sure that asset is not completely extinguished when they make that tough decision and what the city can do to come in behind that tough decision and each of you may have schools I know Gina does that they're having those conversations so high level that's kind of where my perspective sits yeah and that one more thing is an economic development when it comes to Workforce is we have a connectivity with business that schools K through 12 and even post-secondary really don't possess because there's a level of bureaucracy that's been really intimidating and so creating a table where business can say finally hey actually that training program is not what we need here's what I've been needing in aviation Logistics or whatever it may be and trying to connect those dots so that we do have a Workforce for the city of Fort Worth for tomorrow so so what is what are the other opinions about quality of life being top billing or top three would we all agree that it would be in the top three quality of life we all agree that that okay so so we'll just work to kind of hone our list and then we'll figure out if we want to to add priority to that so now let's move back up to Economic Development do we all agree that that is top three and that it should be Standalone or do we have different perspectives comfortable with that yes okay and we'll Define these it's not um not just you know some one person's perception so now if we move into infrastructure and growth being the next two on the list and then moving our way through um infrastructure I I kind of said you know growth is it something that's embedded or is it something that we need to look at independently and really make strategic policy decisions related to growth or do we want to do it in some other uh fashion or form you all have to tell me so do we think infrastructure and or growth belong in the top three list and which would you put higher than the other [Laughter] I think they I think those are two in the same yeah because when we talk about growth I think what we're really concerned about is the infrastructure required with growth okay yeah so so could we could we lean into infrastructure as the the word but in bed growth in in our expectation for infrastructure I think it's the the maintenance and additional infrastructure that comes with growth okay right I think it also impacts Economic Development without the infrastructure you can't support the development again do you have a thought you look like you ever thought yeah I'm trying to think of what you're eventually trying to get us to do which is create these areas of focus and to me it's when I look at that list there are certain things that are themes so a theme a quality of life a theme of managing growth um successfully right a theme of community engagement and how do all these all the many they're not even up there fit in each of those categories do they translate across multiple different themes no you're absolutely right and it's uh it's the baking it into the system so if you have these overarching ideals that say our we want Fort Worth to be known for quality of life okay is that just something that is baked into every single other thing or is it a standalone that has its own priorities and goals so I I think you're totally on the right track there um I would I would ask for the others opinions on how you feel about you know if in if in the perfect world we said here's our top five list so you couldn't have all eight but what are those that are themes that should run consistently throughout that affect every one of those priority areas so help help me here when you think about themes for us to focus on What's Missing From that list in our conversations that everything we want to focus on whether it's parks and Library development Public Safety fits into that as a theme so the quality of life right but I would go back and also reflect on our last budget where I mean it really was a quality of life argument safe clean City and all of the lower tier at lower two rows I think flow into that quality of life type issues you don't I mean Public Safety is a quality of life issue education's quality of life issue so do you the quality of life is one and then the other one as we've been talking about is this growth and and investment in infrastructure is maybe another second category I'm just throwing this idea out there yes or no what do we think okay and then is there anything else missing or do we think everything fits into those two themes what else are we missing Economic Development economic development is the third is the third so the another part infrastructure growth man whoever want to word it and then economic development is a third and how everything fits into those categories do we think that works I think every I think quality of life is the overarching so and everything fits underneath everything flows in it right because Public Safety is quality of life right infrastructure is quality of life yes engagement is qualified so creating the umbrella umbrellas yes else is supposed to fit yeah because economic development is is quality of life yeah my question is as to what we're working towards do we then kind of separate long-term goals and short-term goals as well so so what we're going to be focused on one is one to three years so some of them are going to be kind of short you know policy decisions that you expect or or you know what your goals would be over this shorter duration of time the the longer duration looking out 10 years I mean you're gonna you need your comprehensive plan back and some of these other things that are going to help inform longer term thinking but but the purpose of this specific exercise is going to be that one to three year window so that budgets can be planned and yeah yeah I want to mention something and just I think we all need to just kind of Rest In This Moment you know for us to have quality of life as our stated overarching goal that's very different and it sends a signal not just to Fort Worth but I mean most comp most cities don't get they don't get that and so the idea that we're there is something I'm very proud of and I promise you we'll have buy-in from the public I agree and I think it's it's also just smart marketing for the city of Fort Worth because that's what we're selling at the end of the day when someone chooses Fort Worth they choose the quality of life we care about beauty we care about you yeah I like this so I tell you David um Gina's happy yeah I this this is the first Retreat I've been to where I didn't think it was a waste of my time and so this you don't know how relieved I am I mean this this is really moving it's really moving us I hate that we don't have everybody here but it'll be on all of us to catch up Jared and Chris but this this is a great Retreat so thank you for the team you brought in and you know in these without um Jared and Chris here these were the same things they were saying they're included in this list so hopefully um they'll see their priorities also within this so then if we if we move down to something like um engagement engagement is something that should be baked in right is that is it something that needs to be singled out or is it something that should be baked into every process that it is that it is essential to the governing uh um I think it should be baked into every process that's kind of what I how I felt as well and I'm not trying to lead you there but it just seems like it's thematic it it that should be part of who who we are how we do our job Renee this is where you smile laughs okay he paid me I'm just kidding um Okay so we've got the overarching quality of life we've got infrastructure growth the mashup underneath quality of life we have Economic Development under quality of life is there anything else that needs to be singled out we've taken engagement off the list education I feel like fits under quality of life but not necessarily on its own is that yes is that the sense okay so then we're left with Transit and Public Safety sometimes the community just needs to hear Public Safety I don't know what this community wants to hear and I don't know what what the the political winds feel like here um but does that is it okay for it to be absorbed under quality of life or does it need to be singled out I think it's quality of life I do okay yeah okay so what this um but and then Transit you feel like it I agree in infrastructure is everybody okay with that Urban make it Transit is Transit Mobility whatever you want to call it but it's under infrastructure yeah okay so we we've actually narrowed the list to three over our like big big names big big topics but what we need to do is is figure out how and when we're going to Define what quality of life is so as we stand here today we've mentioned that that includes education that includes neighborhoods that includes our you know our our culture as a community um it includes uh Public Safety if I haven't already said that one um uh Parks and Recreation or amenities like what are all of those things that we need to be very specific about so when we hand quality of life to staff they understand well that's what you mean by quality of life does anybody have um you know some specific thoughts on defining what that is similarity let me offer maybe an alternative option is an uglyness from some of the other council members that spoke up earlier what if quality of life is just the one theme at the top of the pyramid right everything else fits under quality of life and it has a different meaning based on the department or the issue or the investment we're making right and then from quality of life underneath it we need to arrive at maybe three true goals that fit under this Quality of Life theme that we've created for the city of Fort Worth right go ahead yes I like that and that's I think exactly what I was thinking when we talked about quality of life and so I think quality of life should be the question that is asked by every Department before they make a decision how does this impact the quality of life for our residents and then you go down to you know infrastructure um growth economic development but in this decision how does it impact what are we doing to positively impact the quality of life for our residents and how does this play into that and then you move down to that category and I would add to that just to say I think if we had done that and I'm going to use Leonard as another example here we would win pick on Allen no and it'll make sense here in a second but we wouldn't be if if we if if every decision had been looked at with the quality of life we would be playing catch up with all the roads that are worth right now we wouldn't be we wouldn't be doing it and we don't want to leave I don't want to leave certainly and I've said this again whoever's sitting in the seat after me trying to clean up messes overall that were brought if we looked at it holistically we looked at things in a lot of different ways so I agree with that and I think let me tell you just just like we said in that moment a while ago focusing on the message we're sending I see us having a barometer that departments can use you know how is this how is this registering on our quality of life barometer yeah and that way you're able to take the intangible and make it measurable and it'll give departments some some way to achieve and what they're striving for I think we're in such a good spot and are you seeing that Gina by um the best way to evidence that is by priority prioritizing dollars yes is that where we see that yeah and I agree so you've got quality of life as a theme and based on the list we've all talked about what's up there one could be we can word Smith this you know investment in infrastructure growth and the fiscal health of the city right that how we're making decisions in investing the second is economic development choices and Community Development both right it's not just the fancy new corporate relocation this is about Community Development as well and then the third we've talked about is safe communities or Public Safety however you want to word that which has to be a theme throughout the entire we don't have a community but to me I think you could fit a lot of the work we do into those categories and then we just have to Wordsmith that the way we want to for it to make sense to the community members yeah so if if we can come to that sort of Crystal Clear Spot on what those overarching words are then we can start to add in the layers of what the true goals or expectations are and then when staff brings something to you at a council meeting and says here it is they can within their report I'm not trying to create a new system here but within their report say and this meets your quality of life objective in these ways so that it's a very quick and easy way to sell it and then you as the council person says hey we all committed to quality of life and that's what this decision is based on you see what I'm saying so so I think that if if we look at it through this lens and I'm going to look at all of you and see if we all feel that this is an appropriate approach that we feel like we could raise our hand and vote and say this is what we are obviously we need to flesh it out then we can move to our next segment so let's let's re uh reiterate it so we have quality of life then we have infrastructure growth and fiscal health is that what you or financial whatever in other words you can't do any of this if we're not prudent with taxpayer dollars so that has to be a theme and it just seemed to fit somewhere within the infrastructure growth conversation okay and then we have economic and Community Development is that what what's that economic and Community Development yes go ahead go ahead the economic development Community investment yeah okay yeah I think economic investment is yeah and Community investment that's good that's it I like that that sounds really um what word look well hello um what word did we just say that we're responsible responsible physically responsible groups responsible groups yeah so we can put in that first priority use the word responsibility responsible fiscally responsible infrastructure and growth or however be impressed be impressive be and then Public Safety you know whether you you could say Public Safety you could say building safe communities you could say maintaining Safe Community like I want it to feel like this is not just a fire yes and it's not just for the police department it's not just for the fire department this is every all of us working to build safe communities in Fort Worth and how that knits together okay I agree just to expand it means street lights it means pavement markings it means sidewalks it means all the above crosswalks I mean everything code enforcement I mean all of it beautiful Parks right Richard how do we feel okay but I don't know about parks I was just waiting to see if I just checking to make sure you're paying attention Richard that's all right all right I'm going to look at the city manager yeah I want David's input oh I'm good he's just like whatever wake me up David is super excited about how he's gonna um how he's gonna give us that barometer on all of our IRS in the budget now he's going to speak up for us to be talking right now about quality of life and what that means for the city of Fort Worth is to me this is just an awesome part of the conversation for us to be thinking about not repeating mistakes of the past because we've got a ton of money going into North Fort Worth in the 2022 Bond program that we created back in the 2000s right when we annexed there's a trend there's a in your Trend report we showed you what we annexed in the year 2000 to 2009. it is the area where we're now in 2023 spending money on roads literally 20 years after we took it on so so the idea that we're having this conversation about not repeating those things and building it around quality of life and infrastructure but to me that's awesome so let's keep going so what's next we're going to start trying to uh set some goals under those priorities give some clarity give some guidance to the staff so that they can start bringing you what you want this is just I just made this up and I'm sorry again for the small print okay we'll do better next time but this I just made this one up but basically we've got to set that Clarity so that there's no misunderstanding or miscommunication about what your real expectation is if you want um Fort Worth to have the absolute best array of animals you could possibly ever have at a zoo and bring people from all over the world to see it that is a very different conversation than I think you should add a platypus to the environment I did it I did it oh was this a bet yeah but you see what I'm saying so like what is the what's the goal what is the lofty um idea that you're trying to achieve because again you don't know if platypuses are the next thing I did it again um if that's the be all in all or if maybe they're out of Vogue maybe nobody cares about platypuses anymore but what you want to be is the Premier zoo in the world yeah that is a goal right and so now you have to have staff do research and all of these things that says you know really it's zebras this year platypuses are out it's really zebras and we need to really invest in that I think of a 20. I'm going to try to get to 100. it's so what we're going to try to do is keep ourselves kind of elevated in that space as we do a little bit of individual work in defining and then we'll come back together as a group to try and really piece together that you're all saying the same things it may just be from different lenses so if we take Economic Development let's say that the issue is Corporate relocations choosing other cities over Fort Worth you see that as an issue right so what is your goal your goal is to make Fort Worth a Top Choice for corporate locations it's not to get 17 HEBs because is that even go ahead oh I mean oh shoot I just wait y'all have ATVs here don't you okay they're everywhere in my area um so so you know is it is it that you really want HEB Corporate Headquarters to move here good luck um they're pretty rude in San Antonio but um you know if that is your goal then you start to drill down to okay so if that's my goal what policy decisions do I need to make or directives do I need to give as a body so that in year one which would be next year's budget potentially something could be accomplished towards the three-year goal five-year goal 10-year goal so let's say it's the first year you expect a report that identifies deficiencies and incentives or tools for corporate recruitment I don't know what that looks like maybe it's a study maybe maybe somebody we have it actually okay good so that so This falls right in order yeah and your expectation by year three is that you will have implemented a comprehensive set of those incentives and tools with appropriate policies in an evaluation system so that's the direction you're giving it's not I want you to you know get this far down in the weeds and tell them how the sausage is made really it's setting the the Strategic course if that makes sense so we'll just do another um example so quality of life um boy I picked two that made the list yay um uh the issue is under utilization of City facilities the goal is to maximize the availability of City Recreation facilities in all districts um they're addressing disparities in our directive or perceived disparities year one would be to extend operating hours in priority facilities that implies that there's some prioritization process that says these three facilities are the top of our list because we feel like that would make the biggest impact today but by year three we expect through budgeting or or Partnerships or whatever to be developed to be able to extend operating hours in all of our facilities so being the end-all goal is to open those doors basically um in a way that they aren't currently so then what happens is that leads to staff action so staff action goes from the quality of life maximized use of City facilities in all districts so staff identifies the resource needs works with Council to prioritize facilities and includes funding for your approval in the 24 budget then in 25 they evaluate the progress report to council with results updated plans and include funding in the fy25 budget so that by um wait that would be 20 maybe my numbers are off no that's 25. so then by 26 they're evaluating the progress reporting to council with results updated plans and including funding in FY 26 budget for everything to be open and to be able to sustain it for whatever period or duration of time was determined to be appropriate so you can see this gets a bit more down in the weeds this gets more task oriented than what your directive or your priority would look like in these previous slides so let's just take this so if you have your strategic priority which is council's directive economic development is a priority they say one of my goals is to make Fort Worth a Top Choice for corporate relocations staff is the next two bullets staff comes back with you with a report on what the deficiencies what the tools are about what you say you already have for corporate Recruitment and then they go about taking the steps to implement that set of of incentives or tools um so and then just made this one up increased Economic Development efforts you think there should be more okay great um and you told staff that well then staff goes and says what are the top business sectors to focus on recruitment efforts I've heard from some people hospitals you paying attention Hospital um uh to focus on recruitment efforts then identify opportunities for business development in underserved areas create marketing strategy to sell sell the value of Fort Worth so again these are action steps underneath what the overarching expectation or goal is if if that starts to kind of clarify where we're headed so we're really focused on big eye and Big A and Big B we're at that level today okay so now what we're going to do is we're going to take a moment I will go back to these just so that you can see them and so I want you to individually just take some time um I'll I'll um explain to you what we're going to do and then I'll give you some time and then we'll come back as a group and kind of discuss what you've what you've thought of but so let's take either quality of life or Economic Development or Community investment infrastructure one of those three that we just identified are for and give me what the issue is that is plaguing your mind right now what your goal would be at this very highest level and then if you could waive your um magic wand and have something identified as a goal for Year One or a result for year one and for year three does that does that make sense where we're going so I want us to exercise through these so we can maybe come to a list that we can hand off to staff at the end of today on these big topics that we've just identified so any questions before I just Turn You Loose for a minute okay so you're going to take either quality of life Economic Development or community and Community investment infrastructure responsible growth and Financial Health something or Public Safety there you go or Public Safety public or Safe Community safety yeah oh let me finish this instruction I'll come right back to you and you're going to identify in your district from your perspective what is an issue that you would like to affect change on you're going to think what is the what's the overarching goal what is the thing what is the change I want to see and then what are the uh your expectations not for tasks but for gold like uh um uh what are those called goal posts like for year one and for year three what do you think should be accomplished toward that ultimate goal but not down to the task level yes ma'am you answered it it's District specific and so yes we want to hear from your perspective okay okay because you should all these are overarching but you should all see your District represented within them and you and your District's represented within the the um expectations and goals that are set within them all right I'm going to give you let's take let's take 15 minutes unless you've got ideas on all of them one or two three or four whatever your whatever's on your mind alarm you're essentially not that part I'm good thank you okay laughs indicated thank you I tried I tried to throw something together really quickly that sort of encapsulated foreign okay so I attempted I know the word smithing still needs to happen but I attempted to give us that structure that we talked about um to refer back to but did anybody have um something great wonderful thoughtful that they want to share with the group on any of these topics any kind of clarity Direction we can yeah please yeah it's been the best nuts in town the issue Falls up under the Ed and Community investment helm amenities such as table service restaurants I can't read my writing are absent from East Fort Worth east of loop 820. dollars are going to Arlington in English what that means is we don't have any table service restaurants on the east side low-income and high income areas it has nothing to do with income so that's the issue and the goal that I want to see is provide table service restaurant dining options to people on the east side of Fort Worth as if development but it also relates to the quality of life of the people that live over there okay now where did you go with um year one year three okay so so I will say absolutely so you have you have have um noted a deficiency you have said what your expectation is to to get there and you know that's where when you hand it off you say okay what is is it business incubation is that even you know what what does that look like which is not necessarily something you would itemize but you would expect that that Gap get filled right so we're still at this high level I would say you know table service restaurants is pretty specific right versus like food options or food desert you know that kind of uh thinking but it it definitely points to a quality of life deficiency that that a plan could be created to to move toward well see it really is one of the three stated goals of District Five and we've we've accomplished one another is on the way but the table service restaurant is fleeting right because everything else is fast food and you know we we have food trucks but table service restaurant that that remains a priority yeah yeah you know I you brought up an interesting point and uh where you said that that your district has specific goals and do you see those specific goals that you can translate to your constituents as how they fit underneath this and why they are important to this overarching goal or overarching um priority for Fort Worth as a whole I can and without knowing we were already in effect finding mode if you will for the signature grocery store and but yeah it's easy it's very simple yeah and so again these aren't meant to usurp the work that you've already done but I'm hoping that that from this conversation we start to see ourselves but it'll help us get more attention to staff and from staff on how to get there as opposed to going to every conference we see hopefully you know open somebody will ask us to dance right thank you thank you so I'm going to go quickly because if you're already starting to steal some of my thunder so I mean one I'm very thankful we actually did get HEB coming in the north of the city and and I think that's a great addition to Fort Worth but the reality is throughout the time I've been here and I've been talking with my constituents south of Loop 820 from downtown all the way out to Woodhaven and 820. one of the things that the neighborhood throughout that area that has been consistently noted this is basically a food desert there is no quality grocery store and and so you know my goal was you know largely to eliminate food deserts within the district and then potentially throughout the city the one-year goal would be creating an incentive package and a concerted effort to attract the three-year goal would be eliminating one or more and continuing through that eliminating one or more of these food deserts and continuing through the city two food related items commonality here yeah yeah well there you go yeah who else give me some other yeah Elizabeth or I'm sorry so for under the infrastructure and growth I've got the issue is storm water management the goal would be to prevent flooding due to rain events to our businesses in our residents and I didn't go to three years I went to one year so one year would be to identify a solution and a potential funding source yeah and then I did for Community investment Economic Development the issue would be lack of large-scale Class A office space for relocation so the goal would be to provide an environment that incentivizes both the construction and the leasing or relocation of those corporate headquarters and then the one-year goal would be that we had a project on the books ready ready to go or you know in the works right so so when you by saying um that you wanted to figure out how to incentivize those types of projects that gives staff the direction to say okay we need to look at boom boom boom boom boom without you're saying okay I want you to offer this this this this and this so those were good Economic Development high level direct and clear expectations now whether or not they can have something under construction in a year that might be a little lofty but it at least says you know this is I want to see this short term I want it I want it to happen soon we can do a year and a half that's fine well and some of them you all know this some of them are related to budgetary issues or Bond issuances or whatever I mean they're they're all these moving parts that that's where staff has to come in and say we have capacity here or we can move this here or who knew we were going to go to all this ARP of money or you know whatever that fast tracks a lot of stuff but being ready and having the plans in place allows you to capitalize and and to move forward sometimes more expeditiously than you thought so yeah mayor okay I'll do three really quickly the first is around Community safety and the issue is specifically to combat youth violence we've seen as an uptick not just in fourth across the country and year one I you know this obviously would be staff LED as you said earlier but maybe Identify two pilot neighborhoods that include Community Rec Centers that need an infusion of partnership and resources and we would do that in partnership with United Way Through the investment we've made in the one second collaborative the second has to do with investments in Mobility public transportation and Community Development and this is really um and we're on the right track right now in partnership with Trinity Metro but what is public transit for the future look like in Fort Worth and I think in year one we're already on we're already doing this so just to continue investment and focus on on the East Lancaster Corridor for Transit oriented development because I think it also fits with this Economic Development Community Development piece if you just really focus staff and resources on that Corridor and the third would be um around the issue is adequate resources investment in public open space parks and all neighborhoods Etc in other words giving Richards of all more money which I'm sure he would love he just woke up right exactly now he's awake now he wants to go back to Parks he's ready um but to in order to do that is in year one we need to identify and create a city-wide plan that focuses on private philanthropic and public resources around a community plan to conserve and cultivate our open space Parkland in the Trinity River and just hit to staff we're going to do that so that's happening and I think that that's something that we can all kind of get behind and it impacts all neighborhoods yeah yeah uh my uh mayor actually touched on a couple things uh in mind that I focused on infrastructure and how it ties into Economic Development and quality of life uh you know trying to prioritize those you know projects based upon these Partnerships that we mentioned earlier year one and I'll just use you know those three years that you had there but this is going to be in a longer timeline most likely because of the cost uh start with easy stuff update our Transit oriented uh you know development policy you know we we have it in place uh you know Eric I know his his ears are perking up because we've talked about that recently so I think it's timely that we start enacting that and you know year two when I say enact uh I think we need to be a little more proactive and look at our respective council districts and see perhaps through rezoning how we can get that plan implemented uh year three uh identified public and private and even Federal you know opportunities to develop these Partnerships future years again what will the result you know improve quality of life less vehicles on the road job connectivity less costs of vehicle ownership right because that's that's a great thing about uh you know rail Light Rail like the text rail because you avoid all those maintenance costs you know Insurance costs especially if you're starting out in your job career it's hard enough to afford a house much less a you know buy a vehicle and maintain right foreign I'll go next I guess um mind is sitting around economic development but in a in a guys we keep talking about as we have attracting large businesses to Fort Worth um and I have I've been pretty open about this we have to have that same focus on our small businesses that are here trying to get open and exist so that centers around a lot of different places one of the things I want us as a city staff Etc and I think we're we're getting there we're not there yet to internalize that that everything we do every time we put a process in place that makes it harder to get those businesses open it it means someone isn't getting food on their table or it's costing them money or whatever that is um but also then I wanted to externalize it and so you know year one goal there is something on the table and this fits into the entrepreneurship and Innovation committee some of the stuff we're doing with techstars Etc an entrepreneurial center that really is uh maybe um backed by the city but not run by the city so we get out of our way a little bit and let other entities help do that so that'd be kind of a year one goal let's put that together I think there's some props already on the table that we could do that and then really it's about a longer term goal helping us do better by that community so those businesses can get open and move forward more quickly yeah that's it that speaks to that kind of thing that's hiding in the background engagement right engaging the audience to Mayor Pro tem Bivins part that there are no restaurants on her side of town how much of that is because they don't know where to go what to look or how to open or get the resources what's the root cause right like right why why are they making different choices right right for sure okay yeah um so my thought or the issue is the continued growth on the north side of District Seven uh with large housing communities and the issue is just having the infrastructure to support that growth mostly in arterial roads so what I would like as a goal is to take advantage of an idea that the private sector um brought to me an engineering company we we all work with to create a PID to provide a solution a developer driven solution to expedite the construction of of the uh the necessary roads and you know the I think the goal in year one is to formalize that and it and they need our help because everyone's busy on both sides but I think we got to get purposefully get everyone together to design what this could be leading to the three-year or longer term growth or goal which would be to maybe hopefully apply that model to other areas of the city as we continue to grow because we're going to deal with the same issues see actually kind of hit on what I was turning in my my mind as you were saying it is so you know I asked you all to look specifically at your District to think of those specific issues um and of course mayor at large but um but now you just went to the next level which is the next level which is okay I know that this PID is important in my district but is there a policy decision that could be made city-wide related to or uh you know whatever the appropriate mechanism is that would impact in a positive way the entirety of the city as well as my district so some of those kind of bigger picture let's plug ourselves into the hole as much as we can when we're making decisions is going to be very fruitful because if you're experiencing it in your District chances are someone else is experiencing it in theirs or will experience it in theirs so that was a great segue to that that point yeah anybody else I think we've been around the room I'm going to catch you up here in just a second um but uh city manager talk to me about what you're hearing what you're thinking what what you think for next steps do you yeah so none of these are new issues see that's good news that's a good piece do you want one okay do you want one no no no no no no no carefully you ask for um so I'm trying to think of next steps so part of the vision thing is to get all these on the table right to get all these ideas on the table for us then to frame it just like we've agreed to here and then we would bring back different action plans and I'll just use let's go to the last one that was on the table which is um councilmember Firestone and that is um what he is describing is taking a pit Capital pit in this case that we've applied in other parts of the city and I would argue in some ways successfully right there's one in Walsh Ranch and there's one off of the Chisholm Trail Parkway and he working with well we'll just call him out Peloton and Travis Clegg have said if I could get other Developers to agree to go in together would the city expand its capital pit policy to cover multiple developers and the answer should be I think I think we should do that yes it would require changing the policy and all that but if we could get developers to coordinate that actually benefits the city right in the long run and when you talk about Capital infrastructure and development so I'm just using that as an example and in that case if Travis and Peloton can create that collaboration it should be easy on our part then to change the policy to cause that to happen and the city will benefit and the developer will benefit from that action so I'm just saying we could take the same thing when we talk about storm water that's going to be an issue in the upcoming budget I'm pretty sure we're already working on the United Way and the youth violence there but we could bring other strategies that get at some of the same issues that got put on the table so yeah I'm very comfortable with the conversation you're um so so the next step or the next question is so you're you're the Central Point your your office is where the this is going I need this whatever I want this in the budget I need this I need whatever so you're the one who is receiving all of the information and and figuring out that you're hearing common themes because they may may or may not be you may as members may or may not be talking to each other about these specific issues and so it it is on the city manager to have a system in place whereby he solicits this type of high-level goal setting input so that he has what he needs to propose a budget that meets those needs but also come back to you and say there are sick different districts that all have this drainage issue and what we need to do is now focus on a new policy related to drainage if that makes sense so from here you know this was an exercise to get you thinking about the types of information or the types of higher level goal setting that is going to be really beneficial As you move forward with your new strategic priorities but now a system needs to be put in place whereby you're getting the input that you need when you need it because I know you have a budget that is it's always around the corner budget never stops I think in city government but but yeah so so I think the that walking away from here today we I feel for sure have this I feel like this body would raise their hand and vote Yes this is where we're headed these are our official strategic priorities the goals are going to take a little bit more time and a little more effort because there has to be the process where you sit down you think through it you submit whatever it is you you know coming them we heard some commonalities around the table so it may be that there is a common theme and that can be addressed in one specific way through the budget that meets all of your needs but if we're doing it in isolation we're doing it in our in a vacuum in our own District we're not maximizing the potential for real change that 10x change kind of thinking for Fort Worth itself and we're also doing pieces and parts which creates and enforces and reinforces inequities because you may have a vocal you know person over here but not over here and so whatever this thing is festers because it hasn't been fed through the the overarching system so um uh walking away from here today I I would advise um that the city manager decides or mayor however y'all do it here decides in what fashion we want to see your ideas or your specific top three or whatever they are under these and in a time frame that that effect Could Happen potentially within the next budget here right so does that sound doable yes yeah okay and I think what we could bring back to the council in pretty quick time is a process for doing that right because we just scratched the surface right here right with just taking 15 minutes right that that's how much time we've taken to do that so we could break this down into for this week we're going to focus on economic development Community investment then we can focus on community safety so there's a structure we could put to that and get some feedback and pretty short uh pretty short time frame right and David I want to add some accountability component in it and this goes back to when you very when you start you both of you started talking to us about we are the ones who set The Vision you know that's how you get the policy there has to be some level of accountability that will fall up under your in the weeds category but for example we we've got several Regional entities where we could not have a conflict in policies now we've got one that's voluntary I consider the north Texas commission voluntary if we agree we don't agree but we had a point in time where there was a variance away from the Council of governments and that cannot be and so there has to be adherence to the vision coming from us and staff not going rough shot off going rogue with good ideas but you know that's important to me that we have everything in place so that when we set the vision staff knows to carry that out and if there are ways that they need to amend it that's fine but don't just go off the rails and so I expect you to incorporate that and and once you set the vision you set the priorities you set the goals you now have said I expect there to be accountability in this and I expect there to be reporting in this in some way because you can say it all day long but if nothing ever comes back to you it's very easy to assume that nothing's going on and so what does that structure look like that is most comfortable to you all and whether it's you know we do a quarterly update we do a whatever we we put in our agenda items that this affects quality of life in these ways like what are those things that that you can incorporate in the current systems that aren't you know disruptive but can can give you the assurance that you need um that that your vision was understood and that staff is moving forward with that vision and and just one more we have to this body has to make sure we're not just throwing ideas out there because something drops you know from Heaven to us and because that can I'll just say clog up the system if you will we have to be more responsible in what we put out there for staff and you know I'll be working on that so that I'm not just throwing out every freaking idea that comes out of my head but you know sometimes you know I'll put out about four or five requests for future agenda items they all cannot be priorities and so we have to be more self-governing in what we hand out and so that's something that I hope we can all agree on whether formally or informally and you all have the power in after this discussion today deciding whether or not you think that this process is fruitful that you think that the system that the city manager proposes for you to you know submit your uh your goals or your strategic requests um you know how do you build that in that says we as a body have voted and this is now part of our protocol this is part of our governing standards this is part of whatever that this is how the system works because again if we go back to where we started you have the authority and the ability and the responsibility to build the system so that it exists even when you're no longer in office and so that is the power in this and so if you find that this is a fruitful process and you think that every year we should look at those again and every year we should review the process to see if it's working or not working and we're all going to raise our hands and affirm it every year whatever body is in place that is the authority and the power that you have but it's also a transparency element it's a way to tell the body the staff the public that's why we all raised our hands we all worked on it and we all raised our hands and this is where we are so um will I'm just going to catch you up just for a second because I'm going to ask the group one more time about about this before we kind of start wrapping up but uh we took the I'll show you oh I turned it off these were the Strategic priorities as the group identified and so you had that's in order of the number of votes so they uh this group looked at that list and decided what they felt were common that didn't necessarily need to be singled out and what fit together and what we came to was that overall the city of Fort Worth is focused on quality of life and all the things that fall within that but specifically they called out Economic Development and Community investment Community safety and infrastructure responsible growth and financial responsibility so those are the top tier that is what the group feels like are the Strategic priorities that they can say this is what it's all based on so that we can start moving forward and setting some more specific goals if that is that okay okay I'm trying to stay after class I'm just kidding um okay so so with the group do we all feel obviously maybe in a little wordsmithing but we all still feel confident and we feel good about where where this is going okay and now for the city manager I think does does council feel that you would like there to be a process by which you submit goals and uh um ideas for for 10x change or just change of whatever sort policy Direction so you expect you you want to say we expect him to come back with some sort of vehicle that feels good okay and city manager you have you're good with that no concerns okay so is there anything that you want to I know they were all provided um some statistics some information I don't know where you are in the budget process but are there any words of uh um not necessarily wisdom but direction as they're going through this process to to kind of try to feed in you know are there specific things that y'all are tracking toward next year's budget or timelines or anything you want to insert we have all the data if you want to call anything oh no no I think you know one of the purposes of the trends data is is to talk about cause and effect right so the reason that we've either done certain things or we choose to do certain things is to cause something to happen in a way we want it to occur right um so let's I'll just use a couple examples so we showed in one of those slides the property that we've annexed over the number of decades right you can overlay that with where we have infrastructure problems right so there's a cause and an effect and what we're trying to do is is uh be more intentional about our decision making so we don't create future Problems by our decision-making processes and that we deal with those some of these though are long-term trends right that we want people to be aware of that we still need to impact and I think education is one of those that we still need to impact education now and in the Next Generation because that's a future Workforce and it just like we talked about it is economic development it is quality of life um so I think part of that is just being Mindful and thoughtful about cause and effect of decisions that we make both good and bad as for a process I think we could bring back um how we will introduce getting it goals and impacting the budget both one two and three I mean I think our we're comfortable with being able to identify some of those and then tease out what I think would be what we're really looking for those hot buttons that we do want to address in the near term and then getting other issues on the radar and let's go back to uh small businesses right so I think we could identify if small business is a focus what some strategies are in Year One right and I'm just going to pick on so instead of sending somebody that wants to open a restaurant to four different locations in the city to get four different approvals that maybe we just have one right now right there that's 10x thinking right revolutionary right that's revolutionary I think we could do that right or even better that maybe the potential uh restauranter that walks in the door somebody actually adopts that person and helped them walk through the process so they can open arrest so yes so I do think what we want to get though are those other strategies that we didn't have time today to get on the table right so we need a process to go through all the what I'd say those three sub areas where people can identify specific goals and then we can come back with some more of the detailed action steps on there because I do think there's a we've just spent you know less than a day and 15 minutes and that we just need to be a little more deliberate and thoughtful so that we can tease out those three areas with more uh goals and ideas okay so um just as a matter of of process do we want for this to come back to council for some sort of an adoption official process yes okay so there's there's some clear Direction there um and then again the the exercises we went through were really to try to help you get up at that governance level and stay at that governance level and so when whatever this process is that comes out I hope that that sort of exercise that we went through will help you with with not getting sorted down in the nitty-gritty but but trying to stay at the how do I affect real and Lasting and long-term change versus just fixing this one issue that's plaguing me right now um so I am going to stop there and ask Ron do you have any last Reflections I am like we're ahead of schedule um yeah we could do bonus rounds speed I think the biggest thing is that I want you to and I'm going to kind of revert back to some of my comments this morning that I want you to really absorb and own is that when you're in the middle of any given situation it feels it can feel really intense because it's your situation we look at stuff from the perspective of the wide array of City councils we work with all across the nation I'm sorry I'll start again thank you so much the one thing I really want to leave you with and want you to kind of own is that anytime we're in the middle just part of our Humanity in the middle of our situation it feels far more intense than when we look at somebody else's situation so what happens on the council sometimes your frustration is the dissonance between what is and what you see the ideal to be we look at it from the the perspective of working with literally hundreds of City councils all across the nation and when we look at it in that context yeah y'all have got some bumps and all of that sort of stuff but I'm telling you this is a way better Council than the average bear and a way better governance environment and the things you it it is actually a sign of Health that you feel pain over some of the things that we look at and go aren't that big a deal because the sense of the pain that you feel is driven by I really want it to be better it's discomfort that causes all progress does that make sense so I I don't want you to make believe the bumps and bruises aren't there because they are and they're real and the only way you get better is by acknowledging they exist but I also want you to know that from our perspective we've had this conversation privately when we look at how you're operating compared to a whole bunch of folks we work with this is a really good Council a really good environment you have a really solid staff we think even with your your differences you see on things when we see how you interact with each other and treat each other don't take that for granted don't you've got to it doesn't mean you can't get better you always can get better and you always want a hunger to get better but don't take it for granted because I promise you with a lot of the councils we've worked with this feels good I mean this it's it comes across so clear that this Council even on stuff you may deeply disagree with your passion is for the city and the future and doing the right thing for your community and that is not the case everywhere so I just I just you know my my closing thoughts I want to leave you with is don't take that for granted don't rest on your laurels keep keep leaning into the pain spots and go we got to get better but don't take for granted how good you've really got it use that as the foundation to build to become even better instead of letting it cause you take your eye off the ball and focus on the pain spots does that make sense any questions on any of that before I give it back over to Hillary to wrap all righty thank you all right so um top takeaways mayor Pro tem what's your top takeaway from today as I stated earlier I think we are in a very good space and just the way you guys were able to guide us to certain points that had been sticking points for us in in the past so I don't have anything specific except to just say this is the best Retreat I've been to and the idea that we can have these aha moments that I I know you saw them around the table is a sign of progress and unity and I'm just very pleased with the outcome okay Allen so I would strongly Echo mayor Pro tem's comments I was impressed with the level of unity we actually saw around the table as we explored these themes and opportunities and challenges and and I I think there's a lot of good things to come yeah thanks I'll say thanks for spending the time I I really told David during the break love these kind of sessions takeaways here is I'm glad we're sort of able to Rally around some themes here to I know give direction to staff and other things because I think we all come at issues or problems from different as we should it's our district and we're looking at problems different ways but I'm glad we have some sort of structure here and what I'll say too is I'm I just I'm thankful and I'll take a page from what Ron talked about earlier thankful for my colleagues around the table that sat here today and prioritized this and made sure that they were here sitting at the table everybody that was because this was probably the best thing we've done in two years since I've been sitting on this Council uh and I think we've got a good road map there thank you Carlos that's going to Echo what has been said already appreciate everybody's perspectives it's really helpful you know to take that in because during a given council meeting we're so focused on the issue at hand that we don't step back I think enough and consider what is the bigger picture right so for me one of my top takeaways was the integration of priorities as we discussed right took me a while to kind of wrestle with it in my head but I think it makes it easier to compartmentalize how it impacts individual departments and that might help those individual departments too you know when we start talking about our strategic goals that way we keep moving forward in progress we're not just moving one proverbial needle but we're moving multiple ones you know again for the sake of our city and residence Elizabeth um so one I really appreciate that we've come out of this with what feels like a cohesive vision for all of us we don't always get there so it's nice that we got there today we counted to more than five so that was nice that's true but um I think that this is such a great lens to give staff to help them start evaluating what they bring to us and what they present to us and I think that I'm really excited about how that communication flow is going to take place now that we have given them this because I think for the past year and a half they've been just trying to figure out the new five or six or you know and so now they know what to ask before they come to us and that is how does this impact our quality of life and you know how to frame it when you give it to them and say this quality of life is the reason that I'm bringing you know bringing this to you right Leonard thank you all for today um a couple takeaways uh one I guess it's it's okay to look stupid is that yeah that's all right super that's a great one uh you know and the other one would be um seriously uh I love this uh I guess it was um uh a comment uh that uh we heard which was uh organizations become what they talk about and I think it's interesting that that was up front and we arrived at this quality of life can conclusion about what we're going to talk about what we're going to work towards and I just thought that was very impactful and a good takeaway I know you weren't here for much of it I'll catch you up after I I caught up very quickly thank you um one I want to say you know go ahead no she's she's giving him trouble [Laughter] [Applause] um first of all thank you for you and Ron for the process process that y'all developed I really appreciated the conversations that we had and to see where we landed with the priorities and the process for you know as a council how we provide feedback through the budget process I really appreciate you know that I don't really land I also really appreciate the grace that y'all shared with us today you know after us having to attend Amber Carr's funeral the sister with Tatiana Jefferson so but nonetheless I appreciate y'all creating multiple points for us to give input in this process and I'm really proud of where we as a council and and City landed and Chris I know you weren't here for much of it but do you have any parting thoughts about uh today or the process leading up to today no I agree with everything or disagree with everything so I agree with everything perfect I will say before I before I turn it over to the mayor um to wrap it up I will say that I hope that you all took that step back and recognized the cooperation that was in this room today you were all saying the same things in different ways and so bringing it to you in in the way that we did I think produced really fruitful results and you were all respectful and you all listened to each other's opinions and we arrived very easily and ahead of schedule um at what I think is going to be a very clear and very powerful statement moving forward for this organization so y'all have been great you were all wonderful in the interviews you were candid with me and gave me everything that I needed to come here today and and uh and and your participation and and a willingness to serve just in general and willingness to participate in this process I hope is going to be fruitful for you moving forward um so with that I'm going to turn it over to the mayor to uh give her remarks and then I guess adjourn the meeting perfect um well thank you very much to Hillary and Tehran for facilitating such a productive day I really enjoyed it very much so thank you and to the city staff again thank you for feeding us so well shockingly we weren't comatose this afternoon the food was awesome so thank you very much yeah um just a few parting thoughts the first is I might offer an idea that maybe we reconvene as kind of an update to this after the May election in May or June because we know we'll have at least one new person in District Seven to make sure that we keep them on Pace what we're doing because yes you're right good point so and we're adding two new numbers so because of that we want to make sure we've got the same momentum with this group of ideas um the second is along those same lines this seems to be I hope that you all feel like this is our role in the budget process right we've identified these themes to help with City departments as they work on decision packages and priorities for the budget with City management that we've kind of given some themes here and we can work alongside with whatever process David and his team come back with on how we want to really influence budget decisions um and then I also feel so encouraged by that we stayed Visionary today and high level priorities for the city of Fort Worth that I hope that all Fort Worth residents could feel like they're a part of these themes this is not about one District or one part of the city this is a a real concentration on what the kind of Fort Worth we want to be which I think is incredibly important and bringing people together and how we get things done so thank you all very much for making that possible any other discussion around the table before we close the meeting from David or anybody I do want to say something I do I didn't get a chance to properly say thank you she was very great in the interviews I think I was talking to her while I was driving and she was like okay just be safe but it was a great talk and so I laid out a lot okay and so thank you for the process and uh thank you mayor for uh you know lending us opportunity to move and do things throughout the city and so I'm excited for this new physical year this budget year um decided that David is here to help us get navigate through this process so I'm just here to work and do the work of the community so again thank you guys for the opportunity great any other discussion for Council David you're good okay perfect I think meeting is adjourned and Hillary wants a picture I was going Oh Renee wants to oh yeah we're missing Gina we'll wait for her to come back in okay perfect meeting a journal take a picture okay good okay