Kincardine council has decided that they want to work to streamline a draft strategic plan with the help of staff before moving forward.
On Wednesday, council was presented with the draft to help outline goals that they have for the remainder of their term.
The report was presented by Linton Consulting.
Councillor Mike Hinchberger said while he felt that the consultation sessions were productive, he felt that some of the goals within the draft plan were lacking, and needed some refinement before moving ahead.
“This is going [in] the right direction, but I still find some of the specific actions… I wouldn’t find to be specific,” he explained to staff.
Council felt that while they were working together with Linton on the consultations, they were able to discuss their own goals and priorities for the municipality, and the general consensus was that it was more effective that the first half of their current term on council.
The consultations also took place prior to Stellina Williams joining the group on November 6th, and individual members suggested that her involvement was essential going forward.
Ward 2 Councillor Bill Stewart agreed with Hinchberger, and suggested a motion for an ad hoc committee to get each member of council to get involved with staff for a clearer way forward.
Hinchberger said that while he would likely want to focus on things like affordable housing and organizational effectiveness, the vagueness of the written priorities leave a lot to be desired. “You can’t help but see that there are financial implications, and I personally would need some time to map out over the next couple of years where some of these are going to fall and what it might mean,” said Hinchberger. “So when I see an action like ‘develop a fire services plan focused on managing risk and providing reliable fire and emergency services’, that’s really not sort of goal-oriented because I think what’s implicit with that is once you develop a plan, you implement it, and with that comes a whole [cascade of] notions of what you might do and what it might cost.”
Due to the fact that some of the actions that may be accepted have associated costs, council wanted to get the work done prior to the scheduled budget meeting on December 11th.