Item A: Goals Workshop Follow-Up

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THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOMES OF BRINGING THE CULTURES TOGETHER WHAT WE DON’T WANT TO HAPPEN Bringing groups together will set up high expectations that are not achievable. We think we are together and the rift goes underground and all communication breaks down and we have a bigger problem. We seek to achieve the lowest common denominator and people don’t trust the city to make the right decisions. If it fails we lose trust and credibility. Nobody feels advocated for and some segments of the community feel like they are ignored. What causes people to perceive we are dysfunctional? We disenfranchise each other as councilors and we disenfranchise the community when they are not listened to. When people don’t care or when they feel powerless, there is a downward spiral. How do we keep people caring and feeling like they have a voice? We get polarized viewpoints rather than the majority in the middle. We could miss opportunities because we spend all our time arguing. We spend a lot of money and time trying to do this and leave many other things undone. It would be ugly. The question is how to get to 4-4 votes, without the sense there were winners and losers. This is less an issue of what we do but rather how we get there. If we don’t focus on the incremental small wins along the way and question the premise, which is natural for councils, there will be catastrophe! The problem would be economic. We could be another Flint, Michigan if nothing happens downtown; stagnation. There will be system failures with politics as the driver rather than community interests. If city council doesn’t get it together we will have time sensitive issues that we aren’t addressing. This is a national phenomenon sensationalized by the media in sound bites. We spend so much time trying to get everybody to agree that the outcome gets completely watered down. We tend to burnout our elected city and staff leadership. Are we afraid of success or don’t we know how to define it? 10