In an effort to look to the future, the Gurnee Village Board unanimously approved hiring Rapp Consulting Group to collaborate on a new strategic plan.
More Top Picks Greenworks G Max 40v
The village’s current strategic plan outlined the past five years of projects and improvements the village has done. Those included developing East Grand Avenue, as well as a multiyear financial plan with contingency scenarios, which helped the village weather the financial upheaval many municipalities faced last year due to the pandemic.
“It’s time to refresh it,” Village Administrator Patrick Muetz said of the strategic plan.
“Our last plan was developed in early 2016,” Assistant Village Administrator Jack Linehan said during a meeting Monday. The new strategic plan would kickoff in 2022.
The current plan put together by the village staff outlined specific projects and goals, and set up a timeline for when the projects should be finished.
According to the plan, each year village departments reflect on the plan and adapt their performance based on how on-target they are to completing the goals that are outlined.
Linehan said the village accomplished a majority of the objectives set in the plan, adding that others were not accomplished because they were “unachievable goals.”
“We’ve got to look at this and decide where we’re going,” he said.
Linehan said Gurnee received responses from seven qualified consultants to help craft a new strategic plan in August, and decided on Rapp Consulting Group.
“The one that really stood out was Craig Rapp of the Rapp Consulting Group,” he said. “He’s a former city manager, and has decades of experience assisting municipalities with the execution of their plans.”
Linehan added that Rapp has a “litany of clients,” including municipalities like Roselle, Lombard and Glen Ellyn.
“Strategic planning is not magic,” Rapp said. “I don’t have a magic potion that’s different from other consultants, but I like to believe that my differentiator is we really get you to focus on what’s important and how to measure it.”
Rapp added that one of the benefits of including a consultant during the creation of the strategic plan is its ability to take a lengthy, detailed plan and make it concise and readable for residents.
“One of the highlights of what we do is we come up with a very detailed plan, but it’s all able to be expressed on one single page,” he said. “If the mayor is called to go to a meeting, and they say, ‘What’s going on in the village?’ He can bring that one page and walk through everything.”
While the contract was approved at Monday’s meeting, Muetz said that the village won’t begin working on the new strategic plan until the start of 2022.