Mission In Support of Concerns

The kinds of concerns described in Section I were on the minds of Michigan City's leadership when they became exposed to the concept of strategic planning in 1989.  At that time the Mayor and Director of Planning and Inspections attended an Urban Horizons Conference in Indianapolis at which the concept was explained and discussed.  Although Michigan City had just completed revision of its comprehensive plan in 1988, it became apparent to the leadership that social and economic problems not covered in the plan were of great concern to many residents and representatives of business alike.  These concerns stimulated Nixon Newspapers, publishers of the Michigan City News-Dispatch, to engage a consulting firm to describe the strategic planning process and to site examples of it in their 1989 report.

By 1990, the City and business leadership, through the Chamber of Commerce, had decided to support a strategic planning process.  They prepared a request for proposals and distributed it to a variety of prospective consultants.  Paralleling this effort, the Lilly Endowment of Indianapolis had established a program to provide financial support to enterprise zones located across Indiana for strategic planning.  Furthermore, projects identified by the process were to be prioritized and were eligible to compete for matching grants from the Lilly Endowment.

As a result of these parallel activities, funds raised by the Chamber of Commerce were added to those available from the Lilly Endowment and the UEA in order that the strategic planning processes for the UEZ and the multijurisdiction Michigan City Area could occur simultaneously.  This had the added advantage of using the same local and consultant staff resources and methods and techniques for both geographic areas.  Perhaps the greatest advantage of all was opening dialogue between residents and representatives of the UEZ and the area that surrounds it.

Having met for a number of months informally, a leadership group advocated the strategic planning concept and spearheaded raising local money for it.  This group was composed of the following people and was staffed by the Chamber of Commerce President J. Bradley Allamong:
 

They met from time-to-time through August 1991 to discuss a name for the process, its procedures, and its timing.  Upon deployment of the consultant team the leadership group was apprised of the most appropriate strategic planning process to serve the community planning process and UEA Board needs and those of the Lilly Endowment.  The timeline for completion of this report was established by the Lilly Endowment.

Organizing for Strategic Planning
 

1. The unusually fast track of the strategic planning process required the organizational structure and scheduling to be put in place and become operational within a six-week period.  A four-tiered process was conceptualized by the consultant team and endorsed by the leadership group which called for:
2. Three town meetings which were always open to all persons who wished to participate who would generate ideas.
3. Four task force meetings to develop, organize, and communicate the town meeting ideas.  The first task force meeting was organized by four large neighborhood geographic areas.  The next three task force meetings were organized by 10 functional subjects representing the most important issues brought up by town meeting attendees.
4. Five Steering Committee meetings at which task force priorities were translated into programs.

The UEZ Board was to meet as frequently as necessary to translate these programs into implementable projects.

The first Steering Committee meeting was held on October 10 with the following persons were in attendance:
 

 *  UEA Board members.  All other members except Chuck Oberlie,
        Valerie Melnyk, and Maggie Spartz live or work in the UEZ.

At this meeting, strategic planning procedures were described and questions answered.  Roles of task force facilitators (lead discussion and maintain discipline) and recorders (record principal points of the discussion) were described.  The volunteer facilitators and recorders were trained on October 10 in anticipation of the first town meeting on October 17.

The town meetings were held at Elston High School near the center of the UEZ.  Many communication techniques were used to reach and attract UEZ residents and representative of its businesses to the meetings.  These techniques included:
 

1. Oral and written announcements.

    a. Radio stations.

    b. News-Dispatch.

    c. Association and business newsletters.

    d. Display at businesses.

    e. Friends of Steering Committee and staff members.

    f. Public television station.

2. Letters to 47 ministers, priests, and rabbis inviting religious membership participation.

3. Radio station interviews of Horizon 2000 representatives.

4. News conferences.

A result was that some 81 people attended of whom 49 were residents of or represented businesses located in the UEZ.

Three plenary presentations were made to open the first town meeting:
 

1. Welcome and identification of Steering Committee members.
2. Description of the City's planning history and issues organized in terms of the UEZ residential, work place, social, and physical environments.
3. Description of the town meeting's objectives to be achieved and procedures to be followed.

Attendees then broke up into neighborhood groups which they had selected to discuss visions for development of those neighborhoods during the next nine years.  Participants reassembled into a plenary session to hear reports of each group's activities and to learn of the next steps in the strategic planning process.  These results were organized into a series of issue and vision statements as a basis for organizing functional task forces and for reporting to the Steering Committee.

The second Steering Committee meeting was held on October 19.  Members Calvin, Kintzele, McBride, Melnyk, and Williams, who had attended the October 10 meeting, were not in attendance.  Mr. John Pugh and Mr. John Newcomb of the UEA, who had not attended the October 10 meeting, were in attendance.  A video presentation entitled "Discovering the Future" was shown.  Ten task forces were prescribed.  Their first meeting was scheduled for November 7.

The second task forces meetings were held at Rogers High School, located in the southeast section of the City.  Participants chose which of the following 10 functional topic task forces to join:
 

Economic Development 

Public Safety and Security

Housing and Neighborhoods 

Leisure 

Recreation and Culture

Education and Learning Public Facilities and Infrastructure

Job Skills Development 

Environmental Quality

Health and Services to Community Traditions and Civic Spirit

People

Approximately 85 people participated with attendance varying from four to 13 people on each task force.  Their charge was to review the goals for the entire strategic planning area and issues associated with each topic.  The free flowing discussion caused overlap among the topics, as one would expect.  Task force reporters described their findings and conclusions to a plenary session.  This set the stage for the second town meeting.

On November 14, the 116 participants at the second town meeting assembled at Elston High School and included 50 UEZ residents and representatives of businesses.  A plenary session discussion of procedure to be followed to achieve the evenings objectives was followed by organizing in the same 10 topical groupings as the task forces.  Attendance ranged from four to 21 people per topic.  Each group had previously determined goals and issues and were asked to identify actions required to respond to the issues.  Facilitators assisted the group's focus their energies and recorders highlighted the evenings activities.  Reporters provided the oral summaries of each group's deliberations.

The Horizon 2000 process was a topic on the Urban Enterprise Association (UEA) Board's November 14 agenda.  Roles of the Board in the process were discussed, an invitation was extended for Board members to attend a Lilly Endowment-sponsored conference in January, and the Endowment's matching grant program were described.  The Board was also notified of its project identification responsibilities for its November 18 meeting.

The task forces met on November 16 to review output of the town meeting held two days earlier, to describe actions required to resolve issues, and to prioritize those actions.  Approximately 90 people participated at Rogers High School.  They were instructed to reach consensus on the most important actions and to discard the least important actions for possible future consideration.  Priority actions were then assembled by the consultant study team for review by the UEA Board.

Following the nine task force meetings, the Steering Committee met at Rogers High School.  Chairman McBride presided and a discussion was held on progress to date on the strategic planning process and each task force discussion leader provided an overview of the morning's task force deliberations.  The Job Skills Development Task Force met five days later than the other nine task forces.

Summary

Participation in the task force meetings was considered broadly representative of the UEZ and a reflection of the importance placed on encouraging people to come to them and to the extent to which participants felt it was a worthwhile experience.  Total attendance at the November 7 task force meetings was 73 of whom 37, or 51 percent, were from the UEZ.  Total attendance at the November 16 task force meetings was 69 of whom 33, or 48 percent, were from the UEZ.  Continuity of participation was also important as discussion picked up from the previous meeting, minimizing repetitiveness and maximizing substantive dialogue.  Some 65 percent of attendees at the second meeting had attended the first meeting.