At a strategic planning session convening Thornton City council and staff, members identified a short list of priority "focus areas" to guide the city's next strategic plan and the staff work that will follow.

In a facilitated exercise, council members placed six consensus “rocks” — the planning term used for large, long-lived priorities — at the top of their list: destination (commercial) development, safe and connected transit/transportation, walkable communities, community programming, infrastructure and facilities, and housing (including housing services and development). Facilitators said the voting was intended to show where energy currently exists, not to adopt final policy.

Lauren (facilitator) told the group, “These are the big things we want to make sure we put energy towards, we put resources towards first,” framing the exercise as a way to prioritize where staff should concentrate analysis and recommendations.

Council and staff reported substantial agreement on some themes and continuing tension on others. Development and speeding the development review process surfaced repeatedly: several council members urged a more nimble, customer-service–oriented permitting process while staff cautioned that shorter timelines must still allow “thoughtful analysis” to ensure compliance with codes and community expectations. Participants also raised recurring concerns about a perceived North–South distribution of resources in Thornton; some described it as an important equity question, while others said it is overstated depending on which services or capital projects are considered.

Specific topics that came up during breakout groups included the mayor and council’s interest in creating a stronger destination or entertainment corridor along the Highway 7/36 corridor and near the newly acquired shopping-center property; expanding youth services and reducing barriers to registering for recreation programs; policies and incentives to encourage mixed-use and transit-oriented development in the south part of town; and planning for future fire stations and other infrastructure. Staff noted existing assets, including parks, trails and recent community center openings, and said they will map current capacity and underused resources to identify gaps.

Economic development staff and council members discussed the difference between types of commercial uses — for example, the long-term sales-tax benefit of a grocery or restaurant versus one-time building permit revenue from a warehouse — and emphasized that zoning and land-use choices shape which kinds of businesses are attracted. Several council members said they want staff to analyze both short-term redevelopment opportunities and the long-term fiscal impacts of different types of commercial growth.

Facilitators and staff described next steps as a synthesis exercise: staff will combine the council’s dot-vote priorities, the breakout notes and the department inputs into a draft strategic plan framework. That framework will return to council for additional direction before staff prepares specific goals and action items for adoption.

What staff will deliver next: an annotated set of focus areas, proposed goals beneath each focus area, and candidate actions (programs, policy changes, pilot projects) that can be costed and timed for council review.

Council members emphasized the need for clear public communication around any changes that affect neighborhoods (for example, higher-density development or new transit options) and repeatedly asked staff to identify what information and partners are needed for each focus area. Several council members also urged that the strategic plan preserve and strengthen core services — particularly public safety and facility maintenance — while allowing the city to pursue new economic-development opportunities.