City of Banks Community Profile
The Mission of the City of Banks is to enrich the community by effectively managing resources, providing for sustainable growth and long term stability; to be environmentally responsible while offering an ample level of community services and maintaining a safe clean community where people want to live.
The Banks City Council has undertaken a dedicated and concerted effort to envision the desired future for this City and environs. We are focusing our efforts on designing appropriate actions for the City. While the primary focus is on actions that the City's governmental structure can and should undertake, we do not limit our vision to that alone. We will also consider actions that other non-governmental segments and stakeholders in the community should implement, providing a long-term, 10 year, plan to make this City a better place to live, work, recreate, and raise children. We have set a course to take us into the second decade of the 21st century, and to establish a broad vision and identity for this City. In short, we have the desire and commitment to determine who and what this City should attempt to be, and to put forth a plan of action in steps that we will follow to reach that point.
We invite everyone to remember that strategic planning is both a process and a plan. It has been said that, “Strategic Planning is a process that is designed for a risky, demanding environment where hard choices must be made about what should be done, and where good results, not just good intentions, define success."
The goal of our strategic planning is to provide direction, and demonstrate commitment. Unlike land-use planning, zoning, and economic development, our strategic planning involves a variety of issues to develop an overall umbrella strategy for the City's future. The Strategic Plan of the City of Banks is the functional management document that pulls together the missions and goals of the City and environs so that planning and zoning, and economic development can have some guidelines to follow.
We did not setting forth on this planning journey without assistance. First, we designated a facilitator to guide and work with us throughout this process. Please note that the term "guide" is the operative word. The facilitator is there to aid and assist, but will not decide for us.
Secondly, there are a set of steps that we follow in the strategic planning process. This process is, and has been, utilized by many communities and organizations, and is well established both in the field and in literature on the subject.
Lastly, the Council looks to the community, other agencies, and groups, to provide information and insights along the way.
We also remember a few key concepts about strategic planning as we go about completing our task:
- Hard choices are required throughout the process.
- Strategic planning poses some problems that might be difficult or even impossible for a community to overcome.
- It shares one problem with traditional planning in that it takes a lot of time, to do it right.
- It calls for sensible and realistic assessments of who can perform the necessary tasks identified in the plan.
- By involving many persons in the process, it builds an ownership in the success of the plan and the results, i.e. it creates a set of stakeholders with a definite interest in the plans’ success.
We keep this process open, inclusive, and active. We expect to continue gathering input from the communities at-large.
We understand that the typical Community normally takes about twelve to eighteen months to complete this process - i.e. from initiation of the process through the completion of the action plan. While this is the norm, we are proceeding diligently, with the understanding that we have not established a completion date for our work. We expect to make steady progress on completing the task at-hand, and we commit to doing so expeditiously.
Our City, with its’ smaller population is facing a number of complex issues that many larger jurisdictions are not. The issues we face are seemingly daunting, with far-reaching consequences for the future. However, we will continue to be thorough and detailed in our approach.
This is a most critical task that we have undertaken with broad and important implications for this City's future, and we do so with a dedication and civic mindedness. We are the “now” and the “future” of Banks.