Special Meeting

City of Elko ) County of Elko ) State of Nevada ) SS November 4, 2025 The City Council of the City of Elko, State of Nevada met for a regular meeting beginning at 9:00 AM, Tuesday, November 4, 2025. The meeting was held at the E-Center, Ruby and Silver Rooms, 700 Moren Way, Elko, Nevada 89801. 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 Clair Morris, Councilman Giovanni Puccinelli, Councilman Marissa Lostra, Councilwoman City Staff Present: Jan Baum, City Manager Dale Johnson, Assistant City Manager Jim Kerr, Utilities Director Andrew Storla, Water/Sewer Superintendent Scott Dancz, WRF Superintendent Paul Algerio, Public Works Jim Foster, Airport Manager Justin Alanis, Facilities Superintendent 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 DJ Smith, Computer Information Systems Coordinator Alyssa Mangum, Animal Shelter Manager November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 1 of 8 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. The second of a series of organizational strategic planning workshops, facilitated by University Center for Economic Development faculty and staff, will be held on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, starting at 9:00am and ending around 4:30pm. Work to be completed during this organizational strategic plan will include: •An assessment the work completed during City of Elko Strategic Planning Workshop No. 1. •Finalization of a set of Priority and Primary Issues, the development of a draft set of Core Values and Guiding Principles, a new five-year Strategic Mission Statement and Strategic Vision Statement, and A draft set of Strategic Organizational (and Community) Goals and Accompanying Implementation Plan with Actionable Items. •Identification of a set of resiliency and contingency planning elements including the development of a set of steady-state initiatives and responsive initiatives. Introductions and Overview; Review of the Strategic Planning Process and the Results of Workshop No. 1: Goals and Objectives of Strategic Planning. Dr. Fred Steinmann, Director of the University Center for Economic Development at the University of Nevada, Reno introduced himself. He also introduced Ariel P. Martinez and Ania Calvillo-Mason, Strategic Planning Coordinators. He provided city staff with handouts to use alongside the workshop exercises, copies of which are included in the agenda packet. He reminded staff that the strategic plan is there to provide relatively high-level guidance and overview of where the organization wants to November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 2 of 8 track over a strategic planning horizon, in this case the next five or so years. He gave a brief overview of the agenda and exercises they would be working on. EXERCISE: Review and Finalizing Priority and Primary Issues Dr. Steinmann provided the draft set of Priority and Primary Issues, found on page 3 of the Presentation Materials. Organizational Issues were discussed. Mayor Keener said he was stunned to learn that Henderson had earned the Malcom Baldrige award for management. He said maybe some of the answers could be found in what the City of Henderson has done. Dr. Steinmann agreed and said there was no sense reinventing the wheel. He said he could reach out and start collecting data from them as well. He asked if everyone felt the order was correct. Jan Baum, City Manager, responded having infrastructure above financial stability made her nervous. Dr. Steinmann moved Organizational Issue #4 to #1. Mayor Keener said it was touched on in issue #1, but the city needed to be focused on fostering population growth, noting if you’re not growing, you’re dying. If you’re growing, you see an increased property tax base and so forth. He said that needed to be articulated somehow. Dr. Steinmann responded it could be added in the descriptive text, and was really applicable to all primary issues. Mayor Keener noted that Carlin’s growth was greater than Elko’s and West Wendover’s throughout Northern Nevada. Dr. Steinmann said they’re starting to see that a little bit, but there were some interesting factors at play, such as land availability. Smaller communities have more availability at this point to support additional population growth. He noted Spring Creek is pretty much built out, and Elko is bumping up again federally owned land and it gives an opportunity for the surrounding communities to kind of catch up a little bit unless they start going vertical in their growth. Cathy Laughlin, City Planner, asked about non-financial resources. Dr. Steinmann responded that it is equipment. Does the fire department need a truck, or does law enforcement need additional new equipment, or are any improvements needed at the airport? He asked if everyone was good with the new order. There was general agreement. Dr. Steinmann moved to Community Primary and Priority Issues. November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 3 of 8  Dr. Steinmann asked if the order was correct. He asked if there was a community issue that they should be pulling out specifically. He said housing came up quite a bit. He said the way all of them described housing it seemed to fit better as part of a broader community and economic development goal or priority issue. Ralph Negron, Development Manager, said bigger companies want to be here but we don’t have the housing, which is really important. Dr. Steinmann said thankfully they had a couple of organization in the area to help in that regard, such as the Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority. Ms. Baum asked if they could add housing to #1, since economic and housing development go hand in hand. Dr. Steinmann responded sure and added community outreach and engagement is a giant topic and a never-ending process that is very involved. Mr. Negron commented that one of the contractors had told him working with the city is better than it has ever been, and community outreach has been good, but they need to keep going and keep improving. Fire Chief James Johnston mentioned data driven decision making should live in economic development. He used Henderson as an example, where their whole function around station placement is data driven and x people is another station. He said they need to make logic within the numbers and make the numbers work for us, such as having x amount of money to afford x number of subdivisions. Dr. Steinmann said he liked the idea of putting that mentality of data-driven analysis and decision making into the community and economic development community issue. Jim Kerr, Utilities Director, said data driven has to be city wide and account for so many miles of piping, added employees and streets. They have to be able to expand to continue delivering those services. Dr. Steinmann agreed, saying anyone can build a road but the real trick is how to maintain it for the next 100 years. The construction cost is irrelevant. He said they would modify community issue #1 to community housing and economic development. He asked if the order looked correct. There was general agreement. Drafting a Set of Core Values/Guiding Principles, a Strategic Mission Statement, and a Strategic Vision Statement EXERCISE: Developing a Draft Set of Core Values and Guiding Principles. The groups were tasked with drafting a list of 4-8 core values with a one to two sentence definition. Examples of other entities were provided on presentation materials page 4. November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 4 of 8  Dr. Steinmann pointed out that if they had existing core values, they could utilize them. This was an opportunity to maybe redefine and work on them a little bit. After the groups created their lists, everyone was given 8 sticky dots to vote on the core values they would like to see implemented. They were not allowed to vote on any from their group. Once everyone was done voting, the groups presented their core values. Chip Stone left at 10:22 a.m. EXERCISE: Developing a Draft Five-Year Mission Statement The groups were tasked with developing a mission statement. Examples of mission statements from other entities were provided in presentation materials page 5. Chip Stone returned at 10:55 a.m. Once the groups were finished, they each shared their draft mission statements. EXERCISE: Developing a Draft Five-Year Vision Statement The groups were tasked with developing a draft vision statement, with examples and guidance provided in presentation materials pages 6 and 7. Once finished, the groups read aloud their draft vision statements. Dr. Steinmann commented he saw some of those core values and priority issues coming through. Police Chief Kyle Ward announced they would be hosting their second Community First Tuesday that evening at 5 p.m. They would have holiday assistance resources available, and there would be food there. He said it should last about an hour and a half and there would be a Q and A. 11:15 am to 11:30 am: BREAK Chip Stone left AT 12:06 p.m. Drafting a Set of Strategic Organizations (and Community Goals) EXERCISE: Developing a Draft Set of Five-Year Strategic Organizational (and Community) Goals The groups were tasked with developing Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time- Framed (SMART) Goals that tied into their vision statements, as defined on pages 8 and 9 of the Presentation Materials. After the activity, individuals were given 8 sticky dots and asked to vote on the group’s strategic goals. November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 5 of 8 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm: WORKING LUNCH: Developing Actionable Items and Implementation Plan, Part 1 EXERCISE: Developing Actionable Items and Identifying Needed Assets, Existing Capital, and Possible Barriers for Each New Smart Goal The groups were tasked with the following for each SMART goal, as found on page 12 of Presentation Materials. – Identify at least 1 strategy or actionable item to ensure forward movement toward achievement of each new goal (specific actionable item, responsible person/organization, timetable for implementation, and checkpoints). – Identify a set of needed assets that will be needed to implement the strategy or actionable item (take into consideration people, physical, voluntary associations, local formal institutions). – Identify a set of existing capital resources to support implementation of your strategy or actionable item (natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, built). – Identify at least 1 barrier that could disrupt implementation of the strategy or actionable item (internal or external source, effort to overcome). Developing Actionable Items and an Implementation Plan, Part 2 EXERCISE: Selecting Attitudes/Knowledge/Skills for Each New Smart Goal The groups were tasked with listing elements individuals or groups can learn or develop in a rather short period of time that applied to each of their SMART goals. EXERCISE: Selecting Behaviors for Each New Smart Goal The groups were tasked with identifying the behaviors or actions that individuals or groups would take for each SMART goal. Reece Keener left at 2:04 p.m. Reece Keener returned at 2:09 p.m. EXERCISE: Selecting Conditions for Each New Smart Goal The groups were tasked with listing at least one condition tied to each of their SMART goals. Marissa Lostra left at 2:11 p.m. 2:15 pm to 2:30 pm: BREAK November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 6 of 8  Marissa Lostra returned at 2:17 p.m. Linking Internal and External Conditions to the Strategic Organizational (and Community) Goals EXERCISE: Linking Identified Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) to Each New Smart Goal After a review of the SWOT analysis completed in workshop #1, the groups were tasked with linking specific strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to each SMART goal. Chip Stone returned at 2:59 p.m. Resiliency and Contingency Planning: Thinking About Your Worst-Case Scenario EXERCISE: Development of Responsive Initiatives The groups were tasked with listing up to three major impacts and including at least one vulnerability and one draft of a responsive initiative for each of the vulnerabilities. The question prompts were found on page 19 of Presentation Materials. – What have been the MAIN impacts of the various ‘challenges’ faced over the past five years? Try to Limit Your Answer to Two or Three Main Impacts – Why was the organization ‘vulnerable’ to each of these main impacts? (i.e. lack of diversification in funding sources, not enough political support, aging infrastructure/technology, etc.) – What is at least one Responsive Initiative for each main impact that we could pursue? EXERCISE: Development of Steady-State Initiatives The groups were tasked with identifying long-term weaknesses and their impacts and once identified, list steady-state initiatives that they could pursue. They were given prompts to guide their answers located on page 20 of the presentation materials. – What have been the exposed long-term weaknesses in the organization as a result of the ‘challenges’ of the last five years? Try to Limit Your Answer to Two or Three Main Weaknesses – For each long-term weakness, what has been the overall impact of each weakness? (i.e. loss of staff, reduced capacity, uncertain funding, etc.) – What is at least one Steady-State Initiative for each weakness that we could pursue? November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 7 of 8  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 Mayor Keener called for final public comment and did not receive a response. There being no further business, Mayor Reece Keener adjourned the meeting at 3:52 p.m. Mayor Reece Keener Annette Robinson, City Clerk November 4, 2025 City Council | Minutes Page 8 of 8