The UW-Madison Division of Extension Institute of Community Development has submitted a strategic plan to the City of Whitewater. The strategic plan was prepared by Steven Chmielewski, Community Development Educator for Waukesha & Jefferson County.

The strategic planning process began with a Community Listening Session on March 6, 2023, where taxpayers, residents, commercial property owners and representatives of organizations provided input into the strategic planning process.

On March 8 an initial session was held with department heads, Common Council, and the city manager to discuss the community listening session input, community and economic data, and environmental analysis. A second session with the same group was held on March 16 to discuss current and upcoming operational and strategic issues as well as to clarify and prioritize operational and five strategic issues to guide biennial budget development.

The following five high priority questions and goals were identified:

1. How will the City use its resources to incentivize developers to build single family houses? Increase the amount of single-family homes by 20 per year for five years.
2. How will the City find ways to communicate without a newspaper? Increase understanding of how the community broadly consumes information and become more efficient in sharing information.
3. How will the City support a thriving business community, including attracting businesses to move here? To better understand the underlying issues and then leverage resources.
4. How will the City improve and communicate our recruitment and retention efforts (including diversity)? To identify metrics to improve retention and evaluate or establish recruitment measures.
5. How will the City navigate the prioritization of its expenditures with available resources (infrastructure, land use & environment, levy limits, unfunded mandates, landmarks)? Seek input to identify and prioritize.
   
   Chmielewski shares the conclusion, “This effort encompassed a set of concepts, tools and procedures to help the City of Whitewater clarify the strategic issues the organization is facing, and to increase the outcomes in high priority areas while delivering on mission and moving toward the vision. Through the three facilitated Strategic Planning Sessions, participants helped clarify and frame the issues or challenges the City is facing. The City will use these five high priority issues to develop goals and objectives that guide the budget process to create public value.”
   
   John Weidl, Whitewater city manager shares, “Strategic planning is an opportunity for us to decide as a community who we are and where we want to be. It’s clear to me that the city needs to be focusing on housing, job creation, a thriving business environment, recruiting and retaining quality employees within the organization, better communicating our efforts and obtaining feedback from our stakeholders. Over the next two years, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
   
   The strategic plan was initially reviewed during the Common Council meeting on May 2. The strategic plan is available to view on the City’s website (click here to view the plan). The public is welcome to review and provide any comments by email to citymanager@whitewater-wi.gov by noon on May 30th. Comments can also be mailed to City Manager, 312 W. Whitewater St., Whitewater, WI 53190. Responses will be reviewed at the next Common Council meeting on June 6. Please feel free to contact Weidl at citymanager@whitewater-wi.gov or 262-473-0104 with any questions, comments, or concerns.
   
   The City of Whitewater provides efficient and high quality services which support living, learning, playing and working in an exceptional community. Visit www.whitewater-wi.gov for community information and updates.