With only three of the eight Iola City Council members on hand, a strategic planning session Wednesday dealt more with questions than answers.
Still, members addressed a number of general topics that City Administrator Sid Fleming hopes will shape future decisions.
He kick-started the discussion by asking a series of questions:
? What are Iola?s biggest challenges?
? What does the city do well?
? What should the city stop doing?
? What do Council members want from strategic planning?
?Visions for the city in 2025 or 2030.
Two items in particular, staffing and equipment replacement, were touched on briefly, in part because they?re already being studied.
An ongoing Wichita State University study will give the city a better handle on whether a community Iola?s size is properly staffed. The Council also is taking a closer look at its equipment replacement policies, and whether savings can be realized there without affecting service or safety.
With that in mind, Council members Chase Martin, Mark Peters and Kim Peterson and Mayor Jon Wells focused on Fleming?s remaining questions.
Challenges
Beefing up the city?s industrial base, either by bringing in new employers or ensuring the long-term viability remains a top priority.
But in so doing, the Council pointed to a workforce shortage across southeast Kansas, exacerbated by the lack of quality, affordable housing.
Securing that house also requires the city to toughen its building codes for rental homes, Peters said.
?Some of those rental homes are barely livable,? he said.
Meanwhile, infrastructure improvements, including an eventual full rebuild of U.S. 54 through town, will be costly, Fleming noted.
And while Iola will receive some state funding for such a project, the city will be responsible for most of it.
The city allocates a portion of its sales tax proceeds for street repair and capital projects. Another $300,000 of those proceeds have been diverted to Allen County in support of Allen County Regional Hospital.
Iola voters renewed the sale tax referendum for another 10 years, and it?s not yet known if the county will ask for assistance again.
?Even if we don?t pay more for the hospital, we will need all of that budget we can get? for the 54 rebuild, Fleming said.
