St. Charles City Council moves closer to adopting new strategic plan for the city

St. Charles leaders envision the city as an engaged community with a sense of place and belonging where everyone is welcome.

That's the vision statement of St. Charles' new strategic plan, which spells out the city's goals and priorities for the next five years.

The city moved another step toward adopting the strategic plan when city council members on the government operations committee unanimously recommended its approval on Monday.

The plan will go to the full city council for a vote. The plan identifies four strategic priorities: balanced and thoughtful development, community engagement, organizational resiliency and financial wellness.

Regarding community engagement, some goals include launching a new city website and creating a new online portal for residents to view and pay utility bills by the end of 2023. As far as balanced and thoughtful development, goals include completing a comprehensive downtown parking study, including a signage analysis, by April and determining top priority development sites for the east side, west side and downtown on an annual basis.

In June, the city council approved a $74,800 contract with consultant BerryDunn to prepare an updated strategic plan.

"For the past six months, BerryDunn has been conducting an extensive public engagement strategy to collect input via one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders, public forums, group discussions, surveys and a project website," St. Charles Economic Development Director Derek Conley said.

The 2015 strategic plan provided direction for the city through 2020.

"The undertaking of an updated strategic plan was delayed until 2022 because of the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the installation of a new mayor and city administrator in 2021," City Administrator Heather McGuire said.