Earlier this week we held our first City Council workshop of the year and, among other topics, had a chance to discuss the City Council’s priorities for the coming fiscal year.
Based on community input, our recent resident survey and direction received from the City Council in recent months, city staff identified seven main areas of focus:
Growth
Traffic and mobility
Homelessness
Sustainability
Public safety
Parks and open space
Economic development
City Council members acknowledged that all are important to our community and all should continue to be a priority. However, the top three listed generated the greatest interest in terms of new or additional investments: growth, traffic and mobility, and homelessness.
Another important part of our discussion Tuesday was the fact that a relatively small number of issues tends to generate the most interest from the public. By far the vast majority of the city’s resources are used to fund day to day core services and infrastructure. And because we provide these services at a very high level on such a consistent basis, it’s easy to take them for granted.
To illustrate the sheer volume and diversity of the work done by city employees, we put together this slide show to share with the City Council. Please check it out! (And this is only three-minutes’ worth; I could have easily spent 10 times that amount of time singing your praises).
So, thank you. Thank you to those who have helped Carlsbad be a leader in the high-profile issues top of mind for the City Council and our community. And thank you for the behind the scenes work you do that lets our residents enjoy their lives to the fullest, knowing their city is safe, well maintained, well planned, financially healthy, and rich with arts, culture and lifelong learning.
Keep up the great work.
P.S. A copy of our residents’ survey is available on the website if you’re interested in learning more about the results. Unlike other forms of input, the survey results are accurate within a 3% margin of error. This means it’s one of the few ways we can find out what’s most important to the community as a whole. Good stuff.
