Minutes 03/30/1999 - Laserfiche WebLink

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March 30, 1999 At a Called Meeting of the City Council on Tuesday, March 30, 1999, there were present: Mayor James W. Holley III, Vice Mayor Bernard D. Griffin, Sr., Cameron C. Pitts, P. Ward Robinett, Jr., *J. Thomas Benn III, *William E. Moody, Jr., Charles B. Whitehurst, Sr., City Manager Ronald W. Massie, City Attorney G. Timothy Oksman. 99 - 77 - The following call for the meeting was read: "Please attend a Called Meeting of Chamber, 801 Crawford Street, 6th floor, purpose of a Public Work Session. the City Council to be held in the City Council 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 30,1999, for the In addition, you may consider a motion to go into an Executive Session. By order of the Mayor." 99 - 78 - The following items were discussed in Public Work Session: "1 am pleased to present to you the proposed operating budget for the first year of the millenium, fiscal year 2000. This budget is our most important financial tool. It is in fact a "spend plan" in which we translate the City's visions and goals into the dollars and cents that bring them to reality, within available resources. My message today includes a summary of the City's plan for the future, an overview of the proposed fiscal year 1999-2000 operating budget, and some details of the proposed budget. CONTINUING THE JOURNEY The City of Portsmouth is on a journey to higher performance. Since 1995, City departments and agencies have worked on improving their operations to deliver better customer service. The journey is not the new "flavor of the month." It is a way of doing business which incorporates the best thinking and practices of the last several decades, including those of such organizational, management and leadership icons as Covey, Deming and Drucker. This approach to doing business begins at the top and includes everyone in the organization, particularly those engaged in customer service on the "front lines." It calls for the best efforts and the most creative thinking that we can put forth. It is built on the premise, as a member Councilman likes to say, that no one of us is as smart as all of US. City Council is doing its part. Working in a series of retreats, Council has developed its three "spheres of success" [Figure 1] now well known throughout the City government organization and in much of the community. These three areas are neighborhood quality, economic development and fiscal strength. City Council has crafted a mission statement for each of these areas. And I am pleased to report that the council at its retreat in February of this year once again validated its spheres of success. The Mayor in his State of the City Message on February 23 focused on the spheres and noted progress in each of the three areas. Portsmouth is blessed with a diverse City Council representing various blessed with a Council that unanimously community. This unanimity gives us great Figure 1: Spheres of Success Economic Development Fiscal Strength segments of the community, but it is equally agrees on the three highest priorities for the strength to continue the journey. Concentrating on City Council's spheres, the City's overall leadership team, as well as teams in each department, have worked on the vision and values of our organization, and now every department is preparing a long-range strategic plan. Each plan will identify customers' needs and values and will define success in action terms for the unit. The goal is nothing less than to find breakthrough ways of doing business differently and better, always with an eye on customer value, quality of service and fiscal performance.