College Station City Council approves Strategic Plan

With a new member turnaround this year among the College Station City Council, city staff worked with the council to make updates to its Strategic Plan, which works to maintain and enhance the city’s “high quality of life and unique community character.”

During a meeting last week, the council voted 5-1, with councilwoman Linda Harvell absent and councilman Bob Yancy against, to approve updates to the plan.

The council’s Strategic Plan covers a variety of topics, including good governance, financial sustainability, core services and infrastructure, neighborhood integrity, diverse and growing economy, improving mobility and sustainable city.

“The College Station City Council works closely with residents and the city’s experienced management team to plan for current and future needs,” the plan states. “The Strategic Plan identifies shared priorities and goals, and provides a cohesive framework for the annual budget process. The Strategic Plan’s seven initiatives include specific objectives and actions designed to meet the initiatives’ goals. The plan also outlines performance measures to mark each initiative’s progress and the plan’s overall success.”

Assistant City Manager Ross Brady introduced the plan during the March 23 meeting, and said it originated from feedback by the council during its strategic planning retreat in February. He said during the retreat, city staff collected input regarding four topics councilors had updates from.

Under good governance, Brady said the councilors added that the city will “ensure all agreements with external entities are fair and beneficial to the citizens of College Station.”

For neighborhood integrity, Brady said two points were added: that the city “strives to ensure citizens are satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhoods,” and that the city will “strive to have proactive code enforcement.”

For the category of diverse and growing economy, Brady said the council added that the city will “foster a culture of entrepreneurship.”

Additionally, there were points added to their 2024 Fiscal Year strategies, including that they “explore options for a community recreation center, convention center, or a combination of the two; provide options for affordable, dense, housing options in Northgate, Wolf Pen Creek and other targeted areas to relieve housing pressure in existing neighborhoods; work with contractors to ensure multimodal infrastructure is included in project design; develop new relationship with Brazos Transit, based on federal direction, including the need for local representation.”

Councilwoman Elizabeth Cunha said she felt the council already maintains a relationship with Brazos Transit and that the word “new” was not as accurate as “broaden or deepen” the relationship.

Mayor John Nichols suggested a compromise and have the wording be “new, broader relationship with Brazos Transit,” which the councilors agreed with.

Regarding code enforcement in town, City Manager Bryan Woods said during the meeting that he “wanted to highlight that the city will strive to have proactive code enforcement.”

“I would just like to make a point that the council, as far as I know, has not issued any amnesties related to enforcement, nor have they repealed any form of enforcement recently,” he told the council. “I just thought I would make that clear as far as your strategic planning.”

Yancy explained his reasoning for voting against the motion to approve of the plan:

“I just want to reiterate again my belief that this document needs to be better represented relative to the issue of public safety, which I brought up twice at the [retreat/meeting] and I have gone through and I have looked at some of the focus we have here,” he said. “It is a good document, I don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I sure would like to see a specific call out section dedicated to public safety. But I imagine that ship has sailed. … I want to point out that second goal under ‘neighborhood integrity’ section, as it relates to some of the comments we heard tonight.”

During the portion of the meeting open to hearing citizens, many spoke to what they believe neighborhood integrity is and how it should be preserved in Bryan-College Station.

In detail, the plan states under good governance, that the goal is the city is governed in a transparent, efficient, accountable and responsive manner on behalf of its citizens that actively promotes citizen involvement.

“The city and council will annually review and implement the Strategic Plan, ensure all agreements with external entities are fair and beneficial to the citizens, conduct regular citizen surveys about city services and priorities, conduct regular internal audits of city services, practices and programs and report the results to the public, televise, livestream and record council meetings,” the plan states.

“Critical governance information such as plans, budgets, ordinances, expenditures, etc., will be available on the city’s website and in city offices. Additionally, the city and council will ensure its funding partners remain wise stewards of tax funds, adopt and adhere to a series of practices for conducting its meetings, ensure notices are posted and readily available to the public, share information and communicate with citizens about city issues through owned, earned and paid media, implement strategies to safely and effectively engage with the public.”

Under neighborhood integrity, and what it means for citizens, the plan states that the city has diverse housing choices, and property values are stable or increasing.

“The city strives to ensure citizens are satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhoods and strives to mitigate the negative impacts of neglected properties. Citizens have numerous opportunities to actively engage in decisions that affect their neighborhoods,” the plan states. “The city will strive to have proactive code enforcement. Federal and state funds will be used to help provide workforce housing and address community development needs and opportunities.”

It also states that the city will use a geographic-based approach to deliver police services, and that the police department’s Community Enhancement Unit will provide proactive neighborhood support.

“The city will continue to invest in the maintenance and rehabilitation of neighborhood infrastructure and facilities, continue its partnerships with Texas A&M University to educate renters,” the plan states. “The city will expand mobile-ready technologies to inform citizens and engage them on city issues and concerns, plan with neighborhood residents to address concerns and capitalize on opportunities, support and partner with homeowner and neighborhood associations to proactively address their priorities and interests.”