Special Meeting

City of Elko ) County of Elko ) State of Nevada ) SS July 30, 2025 The City Council of the City of Elko, State of Nevada met for a regular meeting beginning at 9:00 AM, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. The meeting was held in the council chambers, 1751 College Ave., Elko. This meeting was called to order by Mayor Reece Keener. The public can watch the meeting by phone, tablet, laptop, or computer by going to the link provided on the agenda. Questions can be sent to cityclerk@elkocitynv.gov. I. CALL TO ORDER The Agenda for this meeting of the City of Elko City Council has been properly posted for this date and time in accordance with NRS requirements. II. ROLL CALL Present: Reece Keener, Mayor Chip Stone, Councilman Giovanni Puccinelli, Councilman via GoTo Marissa Lostra, Councilwoman Absent: Clair Morris, Councilman City Staff Present: Jan Baum, City Manager Dale Johnson, Assistant City Manager Jim Kerr, Utilities Director Andrew Storla, Water/Sewer Superintendent Paul Algerio, Public Works Jim Foster, Airport Manager James Johnston, Fire Chief Kyle Ward, Police Chief Annette Robinson, City Clerk Cathy Laughlin, City Planner Ralph Negron, Development Manager Julie Davis, Financial Services Director James Wiley, Parks and Recreation Director Susie Shurtz, Human Resources Manager Jeff Ford, Building Official Sarah Schick, Civil Engineer Nichole Stephens, City Clerk Technician II Scott Dancz, WRF Superintendent Joe Carr, Parks Superintendent July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 1 of 7  III. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IV. COMMENTS BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC Pursuant to N.R.S. 241, this time is devoted to comments by the public, if any, and discussion of those comments. No action may be taken upon a matter raised under this item on the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on a successive agenda and identified as an item for possible action. ACTION WILL NOT BE TAKEN Mayor Reece Keener called for public comment and did not receive a response. V. STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP A. The City of Elko has started the development of a new five-year organizational strategic plan. This strategic plan for the 2025 through 2030 period is intended to help guide the City in the further development and provision of various public services and programs, the continued development of the City’s various financial and non-financial resources and administrative functions, and the continued growth and development of the community by addressing identified community needs. This special meeting is the first in a series of organizational strategic planning workshops, facilitated by University Center for Economic Development faculty and staff. Matters to be addressed during this first organizational strategic planning workshop will include: • An assessment of any existing and past strategic planning for the City of Elko. • Completion of several internal and external organizational assessment exercises, including the identification of internal and external organizational characteristics, the development of an organizational Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis, and review of relevant socio-demographic, economic, and housing data. • Identification of a set of priority issues to help guide public service and program development, organizational processes, and the City’s community development efforts over the next five years. NON-ACTION ITEM NOTE: Members of the Elko City Council will attend and participate in a strategic planning workshop facilitated by the University Center for Economic Development – part of the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno – on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. No action will be taken by members of the City of Elko City Council on any item during the workshop. The public will be given the opportunity to provide public comment at the beginning and at the end of the workshop. This strategic planning workshop is meant for internal discussion by the Elko City Council, appointed officials, staff and other invited key internal and external stakeholders. While members of the public are welcome to attend and July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 2 of 7  observe, members of the public will not be allowed to participate in any of the facilitated exercises during the workshop. Introductions and Overview; Review of the Strategic Planning Process: Goals and Objectives of Strategic Planning Dr. Fred Steinmann, Director of the University Center for Economic Development (UCED) at the University of Nevada, Reno introduced himself to everyone. He let everyone present know that they would be the ones doing most of the work, as his work wouldn’t begin until after the workshop, when he would take all of their work and compile it. He introduced his colleague, Ariel P. Martinez, who is the Strategic Planning and Economic Development Coordinator at UCED. Dr. Steinmann informed the attendees that he and Mr. Martinez would be sitting at different tables throughout the day during the group exercises. He emphasized this was their strategic plan; their responsibility at the development center was to provide the structure and write the strategic plan. He noted key takeaways in their handouts, which are included in the agenda packet. Dr. Steinmann stated they were still working on one-on-one interviews with external stakeholders. He told the attendees the strategic plan should provide an overarching direction for the next five years. Where do they want to be by the mid-point and end point as a community? He told them to keep in mind that they do want to be honest and realistic with their implementation and possible resource constraints. The strategic plan is an opportunity for the organization to create power markers of those future activities, services, resources, and all the things the organization is going to do. There will be future strategic planning workshops to evaluate the work they were going to do today. Ultimately, they are all trying to serve the same individual, the citizens of the City of Elko. • EXERCISE: Identifying Internal and External Organizational Characteristics The groups were tasked with creating a person to represent the organization using the questions presented on slide 5 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet, to guide their responses. The groups were tasked with creating a car to represent the organization using the questions presented on slide 6 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet, to guide their responses. The groups were tasked with assigning a musical score to the daily activity of the organization using the questions presented on slide 7 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet, to guide their responses. Community and Organizational Assessment, Part 1 • Review of the Results of the Community Needs Assessment Survey, One-on-One Internal Stakeholder Interviews, and Community Meetings Prior to the workshop, Dr. Steinmann had implemented and collected responses for comprehensive community needs surveys from February 2025 to May 2025. They had a total of 322 unique respondents; the vast majority of survey responses were from the City of Elko, but some indicated they may live in the surrounding community. The survey consisted of 41 questions. One-on-one and small group internal stakeholder interviews were conducted from February 2025 to April 2025. There were July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 3 of 7  four community meetings held June 26, 27, and 28, 2025 with a total of 32 attendees. He added that one-on-one small group external stakeholder interviews were ongoing. He anticipated those being complete within the next week or so. He noted that the answers they had already received from the external stakeholders were nearly identical to the answers received from the internal community meetings and survey results. • EXERCISE: Identifying Key Trends in the Results of the Community Needs Assessment Survey, One-on-One Internal Stakeholder Interviews, and Community Meetings The exercise required the use of the three summary documents in their handouts, found in the agenda packet. Dr. Steinmann asked them to pull one to three trends findings they felt were important. Using the information provided, they were tasked with answering the questions presented on slide 11 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. 11:15am to 11:30am: BREAK Community and Organizational Assessment, Part 2 • Evaluating Current Socio-Demographic, Economic, and Housing Conditions (County-by- County, Statewide, and National) Dr. Steinmann provided a handout, a copy of which is included in the agenda packet, that included data compiled from the last five or so years. The Center for Economic Development likes to incorporate quantitative analysis alongside qualitative analysis in the development of these strategic plans. He said one of the major issues he sees in strategic planning is the assumption that their community, county, region, or whatever type of geography they are talking about, looks a certain way and operates a certain way. One of the issues with sociographic, economic and housing data that is available is mostly compiled for communities in non-metro areas and is from the US Census Bureau. He said they know there are problems with the Census Bureau data, especially when you get into more rural communities. Intuition can be useful to act as a gut check to what is being reported to the census. Part of the updates they will provide every year over the next four years will include the next year of available data to build out the time series, and so they can see how the communities in the regions and counties shift in terms of population, median age and other information that would be included. Incorporating a quantitative analysis instead of assuming communities look a certain way will give a better idea on population growth or decline, if the population is getting older or younger, poverty levels are increasing or decreasing and so on. As a public entity that serves the public, it is a good thing to have some understanding of what the changes in these characteristics actually look like. • EXERCISE: Identification of Priority Socio-Demographic, Economic, and Housing Conditions The groups were asked to pick three trends and use the information provided to answer five questions found on slide 14 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. 12:20pm to 12:35pm BREAK July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 4 of 7  WORKING LUNCH; Community and Organizational Assessment, Part 3 • The SWOT Analysis Dr. Steinmann described the different parts of a SWOT analysis. Strengths and Weaknesses were internal characteristics of the organization that give advantage or disadvantage over others in present time. Opportunities and Threats were elements outside of the organization and identified in the future. • EXERCISE: Completing a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) Analysis of the Organization and Community/Region The groups were tasked with identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within their organization over the next five years using slide 17 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. Community and Organizational Assessment, Part 4 • Internal and External Organizational Likes and Dislikes and Organizational Positions Dr. Steinman explained the questions in this exercise have been answered numerous times throughout the one-on-one stakeholder interviews and community needs assessment. He said hopefully everyone had the opportunity to think about the questions a little bit more. This exercise was an opportunity to add to the content of the questions they had all answered before. • EXERCISE: Identifying Internal and External Organizational Likes and Dislikes (Four Questions) The group was instructed to answer the four questions on slide 20 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. • EXERCISE: Assessing Positions on Critical Internal/External Organizational Positions (Eight Questions) The group was instructed to utilize their handouts or use their intuition, experience, and understanding to answer the eight questions on slide 21 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. 2:30pm to 2:45pm: BREAK Identifying Formal and Informal Mandates • Formal vs. Informal Mandates Dr. Steinmann explained the next two exercises were really the beginning of the transition from assessment into actual development of the key elements of a comprehensive strategic plan. Those key elements generally include a set of core values, a mission statement, a vision statement, and most importantly strategic goals, objectives, actionable items and implementation measures. The first July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 5 of 7  exercise was identifying the formal and informal mandates. Formal mandates are the legal requirements an organization is required to meet. Informal mandates include stakeholder expectations, needs of the public and entities that the organization serves. • EXERCISE: Identifying Formal and Informal Mandates to Guide Strategic Direction The groups were tasked with identifying the formal and informal mandates of the organization, examples of which were included on slide 23 of the presentation slide, found in the minutes packet. Setting Priority Issues; What is a priority and primary issue? Dr. Steinmann explained this would be a summation of everything they had worked on up to that point. It would consist of developing a clear concise list of narrowly defined priorities and primary issues the City of Elko should invest its resources in over the five-year strategic plan. He told the groups to take some time to look over the work they had completed up to that point and think about the priority and primary issues in each of the categories. It could be a project or service the city either needs to expand or create. It could be a specific resource the organization needs but does not currently have. He explained the purpose of the exercise is a realization that there are resource constraints, one of those being time. • EXERCISE: Developing Priority and Primary Issues and Prioritizing Them The groups were tasked with identifying and listing the priority or primary issues that must be addressed over the five years, examples of which were provided on slide 25 of the presentation slides, found in the minutes packet. Once the groups had successfully completed their lists, Dr. Steinmann instructed everyone to pick up a sheet of sticker dots that had been provided, walk around to everyone’s lists, and vote on the issues they felt were most important. Each individual was allowed to use eight sticky dots for voting. Wrap-Up and Thank You; Next Steps Dr. Steinmann thanked everyone for their participation. He and Mr. Martinez would be taking everything from their group exercises and compiling them into a useful summary for the next workshop, which would involve developing the key elements of the five-year strategic plan: core values, mission, vision, goals, objectives, actionable items, implementation measures, and resilience and contingency elements. The third workshop would wrap up the process. VI. COMMENTS BY THE GENERAL PUBLIC Pursuant to N.R.S. 241, this time is devoted to comments by the public, if any, and discussion of those comments. No action may be taken upon a matter raised under this item on the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on a successive agenda and identified as an item for possible action. ACTION WILL NOT BE TAKEN July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 6 of 7  Mayor Keener called for public comment and did not receive a response. He encouraged everyone at the meeting to read the 10 pages of comments from the public provided in the handouts as it was important for them to know what the public is thinking. There being no further business, Mayor Reece Keener adjourned the meeting at 3:21 PM. Mayor Reece Keener Annette Robinson, City Clerk July 30, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 7 of 7