Naperville OKs five-year strategic plan for city
The city of Naperville’s top priorities for the next five years will be adding more egovernment services, improving traffic and making sure residents are educated and informed.
Council members on Tuesday night approved a five-year strategic plan with those three areas as goals. The plan replaces a previous set of strategic goals set 15 years ago.
Several council members said they think the planning process, which began over the summer, resulted in the right goals to move the city forward.
“The results of the plan are all good things that will make the city operate effectively,” council member Joseph McElroy said.
Under the e-government goal, the city will look to add services to the city’s website, such as online permit and grant applications and signup for overnight street parking.
City Clerk Pam LeFeber said the goal is to create “a virtual, 24-hour city hall” so residents can pay bills, fees and tickets online in addition to getting information about meetings, staff members and elected officials.
“The whole e-government, and elimination of some of the inefficiencies residents have had to go through, I think that’s hugely important,” council member Robert Fieseler said.
The traffic goal includes the nearly $90 million widening of Route 59 between Ferry Road and Aurora Avenue/New York Street that began in August as well as investment in a traffic management system to adjust signals based on where backups are occurring.
Bill Novack, director of transportation, engineering and development, said the city is working with a consultant to design such a system, and it first will be used to connect three separate strings of interconnected traffic signals on Washington Street.
The third goal is phrased as “set the standard for community education and involvement.”
Linda LaCloche, city spokeswoman, said this goal includes launching a mass notification system called Naper Notify later this week so residents can sign up to receive email, text or phone alerts about a broad range of topics including natural disasters and special events.
Council member David Wentz said staff members identified each strategic plan goal as an area where the city needs to improve.
“It’s probably best that we focus on our challenges moving forward,” Wentz said.
The council offered few critiques of the plan, but council member Steve Chirico said the e-government goal seems a bit redundant with the community education and involvement goal; council member Grant Wehrli said he wished he and his counterparts were allowed to suggest goals instead of directed to choose from a list.
After the strategic plan’s five-year time horizon is hit, City Manager Doug Krieger said the council will revisit the document and determine if new goals should be set.