City Council Retreat

Council spent a Sunday together with facilitator Steve Bryant, staff, and the city attorney to craft a shared vision, agree on five governing pillars, and tighten up expectations for how the council-manager form will operate heading into budget season.

Highlights

• 🧭 The group aligned on a refreshed vision statement that keeps North Plains “independent within Washington County” while emphasizing a safe, livable, and engaged small town where residents can see their input reflected.
• 🪜 Council distilled months of one-on-ones into five working pillars: (1) Welcoming & Connected Community, (2) Enhanced Livability & Growth Management, (3) Economically Supported & Sustainable Services, (4) Inclusive & Accessible Civic Life, and (5) One Team—city organization plus community partners pulling in the same direction.
• 🧑‍⚖️ City Attorney Ashley Driscoll previewed the OGEC-mandated public-meetings course she’ll deliver (so the full council can “check the box”) and paired it with a “Cities 101” session on roles, charter authority, and ethics.
• 📋 Staff and council agreed to keep individual requests routed through the city manager and to define “significant work” (likely mirroring LOC’s two-hour guideline) so workloads remain transparent and equitable.
• 🧩 Everyone left with homework: staff will convert the pillars into a resolution and budget crosswalk for April 7, while councilors document the follow-up actions (communications-plan refresh, liaison expectations, code enforcement touchpoints) they promised to champion.

Vision & Pillars Workshop

• Using note cards, the facilitator asked councilors to define “what matters most” in five categories—community, livability, stewardship/service, inclusion, and governance partnerships.
• The working pillars captured recurring themes: building belonging through events and feedback loops; investing in infrastructure, parks, and incremental growth; keeping core services financially sustainable; ensuring programs are equitable and accessible; and modeling teamwork between the “big C” (city organization) and “little c” (community).
• Staff will now translate each pillar into budget filters so future agenda requests can be weighed against the agreed banner (e.g., “which pillar comes down if we add this project?”).

Governance Guardrails

• Driscoll walked through why council rules were moved from ordinance to resolution in December (flexibility) and how Ordinance 498 simply points the city-manager job description back to the charter.
• She underscored that in a council-manager city the manager assigns staff work; individual councilors should not direct employees or ask for multi-hour research unless the full council approves it or it routes through the manager.
• The OGEC training on March 16 will cover public-meeting notice rules, executive sessions, conflicts of interest, and the differences between legislative, quasi-judicial, and administrative decisions so newer councilors can ask questions in a workshop setting.
• Council also asked staff to document how its liaison feedback flows to boards/commissions, and to bring communications-plan and code-enforcement updates to early-April agendas so the new pillars immediately guide operational work.

Follow-Ups

• Staff
  • Draft a resolution (and supporting memo) that states the vision/pillars, plus a matrix showing how current initiatives map to each banner for the April 7 meeting.
  • Recommend language for the council rules that defines “significant staff work” (e.g., a two-hour threshold) and codifies the routing protocol through the city manager.
  • Schedule the pending communications-plan refresh and code-enforcement conversations so council can connect them to the new pillars.
• Council
  • Review the retreat notes, flag any edits to the draft pillars, and be prepared to adopt them formally in April.
  • Capture liaison expectations (how agenda items, questions, and updates loop between boards and council) for inclusion in the upcoming communications discussion.
  • Complete the OGEC public-meetings course presented by Driscoll so the compliance record is on file for the full term.