Coos Bay city leaders and staff spent a full workday in a strategic planning session facilitated by consultant Lisonbee Hart, who told the group a strategic plan should create a framework that becomes “part of the fabric of the city.” The meeting focused on high‑level priorities for the next two to three years and on how to turn those priorities into an implementable work plan.

Hart opened the session by urging participants to think long term and warned that planning must be tied to budget and implementation. “If the budget is not aligned with the strategic direction, your plan will not be successful,” she said. The facilitator recommended the council consider a three‑year planning cycle rather than the city’s past two‑year cycle to improve continuity through council turnover.

The workshop combined results from a written assessment with group discussion and a dot‑voting exercise. Attendees included Mayor Joe Venet; council members Carmen Matthews, Lucinda Denovo, Stephanie Kilmer and Sarah Stevens; department directors Nicole Rutherford (city manager), Jennifer Wersing (public works), Chelsea Schnabel (community development), Melissa Olson (finance), Sammy Pearson (library) and Chiefs Jeff Adkins (fire) and Chris (police). Members of the public also attended and spoke briefly during the session.

Discussion among the council and staff repeatedly returned to three broad priorities that the group said should guide the city’s next strategic plan: infrastructure maintenance and prioritization, economic development (including housing and tourism), and organizational health (internal systems, staffing and funding stability).

On infrastructure, department leaders and council members listed a range of continuing needs: wastewater systems and pump stations, street maintenance, stormwater, public buildings including the library and fire station, parks and fleet/equipment replacement. Jennifer Wersing, public works director, stressed the scale of the city’s asset needs and the gap between available funding and required maintenance. “We want housing but we need to have the infrastructure to support housing; we don’t have that funding,” Wersing said.

Economic development discussion covered a broad set of goals from recruiting businesses and diversifying the local economy to growing tourism and recreational amenities. Council members and staff emphasized that decisions about the city’s identity and what kinds of growth to pursue should be rooted in public values and clear priorities. Several participants urged the city to treat tourism and cultural assets as part of an overarching economic strategy rather than standalone items.

Organizational health emerged as a third priority area. Staff and council highlighted the need to streamline internal processes, improve permitting systems, stabilize finances and address staffing and capacity constraints. During the survey and subsequent discussion staff ranked fiscal stability and process efficiencies among their top concerns. “We’re balancing from year to year priorities because our revenues are not keeping pace with our expenditures,” one staff member said during the discussion.

Hart guided the group through a set of exercises that moved from a 100,000‑foot “focus area” view to narrower “strategies” that could feed a work plan and implementation calendar. The group used dot voting to surface the areas with the most agreement: infrastructure, housing, staffing/capacity and internal systems were among the top picks.

No formal decisions or votes were taken during the session. Hart said the next steps would include a small refinement group (staff and select council members) to synthesize the workshop output, then a follow‑up work session where the council will prioritize strategies, timelines and likely reporting metrics. She recommended the city produce a draft vision of success for each focus area after the refinement step so staff can craft actionable goals and the council can evaluate tradeoffs.

Council members and staff said they welcomed the cross‑departmental discussion. City Manager Nicole Rutherford noted the need to turn high‑level directions into resourced work plans: “We can transition to thriving, but we need to do it intentionally and in a way that the folks who are going to get the work done are able to accomplish it,” she said.

The council and staff set a schedule for continuing the planning process: a smaller refinement meeting to convert the workshop findings into a draft structure, followed by a work‑plan session to map strategies to timelines and resources. Hart told the group she would produce a written synthesis of the session and a draft structure for the next meeting. The council did not adopt any ordinances or allocate funds in the workshop.

The facilitator and participants repeatedly stressed the difference between high‑level strategic framing and the detailed operational work that will follow in later meetings. Hart summarized that distinction: “We are not walking out of here today with a plan. We are walking out of here with a structure.”

Looking ahead, the council flagged three follow‑up topics likely to appear in the work plan: (1) a clear funding strategy to support infrastructure and housing goals, (2) measures to stabilize staffing and internal processes that limit capacity, and (3) a community engagement or “identity” exercise that would clarify what kinds of development the city and its partners should prioritize. The facilitator and city manager said they would set the next meetings and circulate a refined draft of the focus areas and strategies for council review.