City of Asheville Restructure is more than rearranging civic engagement + The Three COA Council Committees
I didn’t get elected to Asheville city council in 2022. At the same time one of the first things I did the following week was ask the Mayor, council, and city manager was to produce the Asheville Public Safety Strategy. I make further comment on GrantMillin.com and will continue to refine and develop the City of Asheville (COA) Restructure and Center of Progress platform my candidacy was in part about. There can be more people voting for me and other Center of Progress candidates in 2024.
Asheville city council candidate Grant Millin proposes a new City of Asheville Restructure approach to city hall’s strategic management challenges and search for innovation as our sustainability risks grow. The City of Asheville (COA) Boards and Commissions Restructure project is almost certainly sign of the demand on city hall and ‘mission creep’ over the past 20 years.
In the future there will be new videos on GrantMillin.com where I go over ideas for helping all of us think in new ways about strategy and innovation applied to COA and for citywide purposes. Sustainability is about a better future; not just sustainability sub components like cutting greenhouse emissions… which is in fact a critical Center of Progress. The COA Boards and Commissions Restructure project is another sign of our city hall being in need of a new capability to confront the future. I call this new approach to strategic management COA Restructure.
Nothing we’ve encountered over the past several years is really just about too many or too few city hall ‘advisory boards’… and by the way doing a massive facelift to the Public Safety Committee is about the duties of the city manager, mayor, and council. That’s not just another citizen ‘advisory board’ set of leadership issues.
It would have been great if I could have come up with all the details on COA Restructure and the Center of Progress at the beginning of the Primary Election period. It took a while for me to realize how 99.9999 percent of Asheville citizens have no idea that the COA Boards and Commissions Restructure is about changing the council committee on public safety, the Public Safety Committee, to a committee called “Healthy Environment and Safe Community” (HESC).
What does HESC add as to consistent, coherent, and congruent Public Safety Strategy? HESC mixes in themes of recreation, climate, and stormwater management in with public safety. Asheville Public Safety Strategy is one of the ‘core services’ that came up during the March 17 and 18 Vision 2036 Strategic Operating Plan retreat.
https://www.ashevillenc.gov/government/vision-2036/
The people of Asheville need to be informed on the concepts of strategy and innovation as to COA Boards and Commissions Restructure. One way to think about strategy is vision, mission, overall strategy statement and any sub strategies, goals, objectives, and action plans (VMOSA)… or a plan within the context of Strategic Management. Strategic Management conventions are often about merely referencing those VMOSA components. At the same time a lot has changed with Strategic Management over the past 20–30 years.
Our citizens and certainly the millions of Asheville visitors have been demanding more from COA over the past 20 years and the COA budget has grown accordingly. The idea of ‘mission creep’ is very real with our city hall. COA is being redefined; and yet talking about too many or too few ‘Advisory Boards’ confuses the big picture.
The over-broad HESC agenda risk of ‘disappearing’ COA Public Safety Strategy seems quite real. Citizens deserve to see a contrary analysis of COA Strategic Management and what else we might consider. The Asheville Sustainability Master Strategy and Municipal Strategic Innovation Matrix I propose alongside COA Restructure are contrary; but appropriate and needed as to something to compare and contrast with, versus what COA has been revealing bit by bit lately.
Simplification without over simplification are basic value creation concepts with strategy and innovation. I propose three COA council committees:
The Three COA Council Committees
Public Safety
System Management
Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Wellness (JEDI-W)
While one integrating System Management Committee is the location of all municipal policy, budget, and municipal executive issues; there will likely be separate meetings on specific department issues. Public Safety and JEDI-W issues are integrated too; it’s just that Public Safety and JEDI-W issues rate special focus.
I will be revising my candidate profile as part of the Municipal Strategic Innovation and Restructure for Sustainability model my Management Consulting for Public good business will be facilitating; in addition to the Center of Progress movement I am developing. These three COA Council Committees will be added and contrasted to my Top Twelve Solutions as a 2022 Asheville city council candidate; including the Citizen Engagement Congress and Academy as well as our new Digital Twin planning platform.
The Public Safety Committee isn’t necessarily left as is, in the past state of interpretations of law enforcement especially, with the approach I recommend. All three of these committees are places where a budget issue, a new idea, or citizen concerning can be introduced. At the same time the five arenas of COA Municipal Strategic Innovation allow for more collaboration between the Mayor, council, COA staff, citizens, and actually possibly fewer consultants hired by COA. The reason I suggest fewer consultants may be hired is because this new COA Restructure model is about COA and locals being more skilled at consultive skills as to juggling challenges, solutions, and outcomes.
Instead of defunding the police, the COA Boards and Commission Restructure may be about making public safety less important. And done properly, I agree giving the Asheville Police Department (APD) less work one day is a rational, ethical use of strategy and innovation. And yet today, there have never been greater need for APD over the past 20 years.
In the future I will be using this COA case study to promote Municipal Strategic Innovation for Sustainability Restructure model with other municipalities.
