St. Charles draws from its namesake to plan for future

When Charlemagne, aka St. Charles, came to power, he brought together self-governing tribes concerned only with their own survival and formed them into the framework for the European continent known today.

In revealing its new strategic plan Tuesday night, St. Charles officials hope to accomplish the same thing on a smaller scale.

From now until 2014, one of the city's main goals will be harnessing what officials described as uninterested and detached facets of the city and retooling them into a single-minded body known more affectionately as a community. Hence, the new strategic plan is dubbed "The Return of Charlemagne."

It's been a decade since the city last created a strategic plan to serve as a mission statement for all the hopes and dreams of the community. Those years have seen a significant turnover in city employees, elected officials and residents. The city is bigger, has more residents and more traffic, and, of course, has more needs that must be addressed. But there are also more opportunities and new perspectives.

The city embarked on a process in January to address all the changes with the strategic plan. It's not a nuts-and-bolts list of what buildings will go where, what businesses will be lured and what parks, schools and community amenities will be constructed.

Rather, as one official described it Tuesday night, the strategic plan is about attitude and approach. More than 200 people with vested interests in the city came together at some point in the past 10 months to provide input on what that approach to the future should entail.

"We heard a lot of things that were going right in this community," said Mayor Don DeWitte. "We heard a lot of things that weren't going just right in this community."

In many ways, hearing what needed improvement was the most helpful in creating the strategic plan, he said.

The main goals of the plan are to create a community where residents are in touch with what the city is doing and helping it achieve its goals. That means better communication with residents about all the city has to offer currently and as improvements occur. The city also hopes to move more toward being an environmentally friendly place to live that also embraces all the representative cultures and talents.

The staff also wants to attract the most talented employees to the city to make sure everything the city does for its residents is done quickly, efficiently and reliably, while working within whatever financial limitations the current economic condition presents. The city wants to redevelop and rejuvenate the downtown with more businesses with a variety of attractions and a unique St. Charles atmosphere.

Attendees at the unveiling, mostly city staff and elected officials, called for accountability and realistic methods for tracking successes and failures as the strategic plan is put into action.

The city council is expected to sign off on the plan in late November. City Administrator Brian Townsend said the process for implementing the plan will be formulated within the next few weeks before that council vote occurs.