At Cala U the strategic plan has been a disaster. It's not about mushy statements of where we want to go, but about a fever dream of administrators who don't know how to plan. Our program review was dinged for not adhering to the strategic plan, which started in 2021. The period of review was the five years before that. And given that they think that the point of a plan is to then ask programs what they plan to do about marketing and recruitment...well, I hope yours goes better.

But basically, the way to block change is to use whatever language is in the strategic plan offensively. A good word for this is "equity"; whatever promotes equity is good; whatever doesn't promote equity is bad. Actually having evidence of something promoting or dispromoting equity is secondary, so best just to say that whatever your favored course of action is best for equity.

My friend was on the mission statement focus group for the local school district. He's also an education researcher. He lobbied hard to get the words "curiosity" and "creativity" in it, as in "inspire curiosity and give opportunities for creativity for blah blah blah" or something.

He said that the demoralizing part was that each time some new VIP put eyes on the mission statement, they'd sort of furrow their brow and point to this clause and say, "That doesn't sound like us."

This is perhaps orthogonal to your question, but in the companies where I've been close to the strategic planning process ---with mushy general directions coming from on top and then made more specific down to lowly team members writing actual tasks--- I've seen exactly the same process of status quo inertia, _even when the (putative?) call for change comes from the formal leadership of the company_. So I suspect at least part of the mechanics doesn't come (or doesn't come only) from the bottom-up nature of the process but from relatively short natural language statements not being precise enough to constrain more specific descriptions down the road. E.g., "innovative" means almost anything these days, so in practice it has no impact on the planning process, while all the biases and habits of whoever writes the next step do.

Yeah, its amazing how shit gets locked down through processes. I tried to move a chuck money from a road repair budget to a sidewalk repair budget one time, and it got shot down because that's not how things are done. On paper it was precisely how things are supposed to be done, but in practice not so much.

People park on the sidewalks here, so I don't see the problem.

Why not use parks? It's right there in the name.

There's barriers to driving into most parks.

Have you brought this up during the visioning process?

Nobody ever invites me to those. Sometimes they invite me to the outcomes part and I say things like "Can you measure that?"

At the city level, one of the things I see is that the city staff has very little capacity to do anything more than stand pat, so the strategic planning process helps inform the, like, three big things they'll actually do every year, and gives them cover to not allocate time for other things.

As someone on the inside of this process, the main thing that locks out activists advocating for transformational change is their complete inability to do sums, or to acknowledge that there is any limit to budgets, or anyone other than them who might possibly also have a claim on what resources there are. At present we have got down to a choice between two options: 1) you get, metaphorically, a hairy dude with a guitar, which is what you have right now, and which we can afford and 2) you get the hairy dude with a guitar and also a vague-looking girl playing drums, which we can just about afford.

The activists have yet to move from their position that the minimum acceptable service is the London Symphony Orchestra, and are quite open that if they get the hairy dude and the vague-looking girl they will regard this as the thin end of the wedge with regard to their eventual project of getting the London Symphony Orchestra. They are being revved up in this by local politicians who are claiming that the LSO is quite affordable, and that the only reason they don't have it is that the government is run by a party that isn't theirs.

Scott's Seeing Like a State helped me understand how large decisionmaking entities (it's applicable also to large corporations in some ways) differ from small ones.

At the risk of oversimplifying, any quantity both easy to measure and also not threatening to any committee/groupchat has an advantage for surviving the decisionmaking burlesque. A bag of words about unfortunate kids or old people does not have that advantage.

My exact job is with a team running a strategic planning process.

1. I kinda hate the vagueness of it and long for an actual precise concrete plan with my preferred endpoints and interim steps to get there.
2. I have come to think of our product (back when we were running a large collaborative process) as twofold.
2a. One product was a plan that was bland as fuck but was a policy floor that no one would hate. Politicians could take something from our plan and run with it and probably no one would oppose it.
2b. The other product was the on-going convenings and interactions that we provided, in which people met each other and talked about our topics. Back when we did this large scale, I think we got people together enough that we generated momentum for some of our policies with the people who could put them into practice.

We used to have a massive collaborative process, but the Newsom admin has shut that down. Now they tell us the plan they want the collaborative process to create and we back-engineer our meetings to arrive at that plan. It sucks. We aren't even authentically mushy and bland anymore.

I have not done one of these but suspect that a People's Budget would be less mushy and bland. Have the city designate $1M that The People can spend and see what their collective priorities are from that.

I am much less keen on the idea of participatory budgeting than I was 10 years ago. Budgets are exactly the sort of thing elected officials and staff should sweat over; citizens should just have to evaluate the results, not the means.

16: but this is exactly what my town meeting is about: we vote on the budget. Now there are other towns with representative town meeting where members are elected. The people on the finance committee get into the nitty gritty of it.

I've experienced strategic planning processes that weren't designed to hold to the status quo. You can also use the strategy process to ram through your plan to make changes by first holding fake participatory meetings, followed by a narrow group drafting a "strategy document", followed by more fake participatory sessions where acceptable participation is to inquire how to assist in implementing the strategy, coherent or not.

Do you have a question about the plan? Either it could be incorporated in the process for the next draft (3-5 years out, maybe, who knows?) or you hate change and why do you hate change? Where is this resistance to change coming from? Were you in favor of change during the fake planning process? Despite what you might have said at that time, no you were not in favor of change! Because whatever you thought was change was tied to an old way of thinking, only the change outlined in the strategy is true change. Why is this the only acceptable path of change? Because the strategic planning process identified it as such.

No, I'm not still annoyed by this, why do you ask?

16: That's a New England thing, one I don't see a lot of value in imitating, at least for places over a few hundred population.

18: I know. It's no good for a proper city, but it actually kind of works for medium-sized places. Even for larger towns. My old town had 45k with an elected representative town meeting in addition to the Board of Selectmen. Framingham has 71k, and they decided to convert to a city form of government.

I feel like strategic planning and municipal budgeting don't actually intersect much so I'm not sure exactly what heebie is asking.

"Municipal bonds, Ted. Triple-A rating, best investment in the book."

I'm not sure exactly what heebie is asking.

She's asking for results, teo. Results! R-E-S-U-L-T-S!

I'm trying! It keeps snowing though.

I was the one who brought up a People's Budget and I'm not sure it was relevant. I haven't been part of one, so I am not disenchanted with that process. I just thought it might be less vague than a "strategic plan".

Scattered points:
-There's a whole literature on this and I've poked at it, but all I've seen is incredibly unreadable, I think because it started as an anthropology subfield.
-The ongoing train wreck of Chile's constitutional reform might be germane here, but I haven't been paying attention.
-Second the points about measurability.
-Manpower* for planning. Showing up for your policy with a worked out plan, budget, research, legislative language gives you a huge leg up. That's why special interests have think tanks.
-On the activist bit I was reminded of this conversation about landmines from a few years ago. It's some Swamp creatures and an activist, and the activist is totally irrelevant, not because the others actively shut her out, but because she's having the wrong conversation, trying to answer the wrong question. The question she wants to answer is "Are mines morally permissible", but the question the Swamp was actually interested in was "Are mines useful enough to be worth keeping in stock?" On that she had no knowledge and nothing to contribute and was thus irrelevant. **
*OMFG so gendered. But I don't see a good alternative. "Staff" I guess is best, but it lacks weight. Poor mouth feel.
**As best I can recall. (As events have made clear, the answer to both questions is of course, "Yes".)

The Constitution says I have a right to landmines.

A right to bear arms. Not plant arms.

You only have a right to explosive destruction if the destructive force is directed linearly.

I can use land mines as long as I'm holding them.

"Pull the community together" can cover for a lot. My usual stereotype of local community meetings is that only old people, cranks, and people really upset about the project have the time and energy to show up. That usually means a status quo bias, enough so that I tend to think that holding a meeting for community input is an announcement that you plan to do very little.

Public meetings are often just bureaucratic requirements that don't necessarily get any actual input.

A quotation posted here before:

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for a skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

The thing is, as much as this stuff is horrible, you can't actually plan most things without tons of tedious detail.

32. Richard White, so great. That looks like a good one-- I loved both Railroaded and his Reconstruction book, Railroaded more so.

20: our city budget process is this 9 month thing that starts with a two-day visioming workshop, and then a goals workshop, and about five workshops later, they get an estimate on how much they're expecting for property taxes, and then voila, draft of the budget. It feels like a yearly strategic plan, although there's also a standard 10 year comprehensive planning process.

The part that's absolutely crazy is that in the official budget, it goes fund by fund, and discuss money in and out, but not department by department. So there is literally no mention of how the general fund gets spent on libraries vs police department. It's just The Big Opaque General Fund that hides all controversial details. (I actually filed a FOIA recently on how the general fund is broken out, but haven't yet gotten an answer.)

So you don't actually have a budget?

There's like a box of pennies and you just count what's left at the end of the year?

Public meetings are often just bureaucratic requirements that don't necessarily get any actual input.

We often get good input. Just the other day I was at a meeting where a member of the public pointed out that the ordinance under discussion may accidentally authorize slot machine halls instead of just regular charity casinos.

38: "accidentally"?

30: They've been doing some community meetings on a zoning overlay district. I've watched some on YouTube and been kind of impressed. People have been making good comments about which designs they like better within a range of choices, and they're pushing for mixed use to make the areas with denser housing more walkable and less reliant on cars.

There's a weird thing here now where slot machines are called "games of skill" are now in lots of small businesses like convenience stores.

More, very generically:
-An actor can gain influence in virtue of external connections. Ideally those connections come with money (eg. IIRC there was mentioned here some kind of non-profit that helps flyspecks figure out what federal programs they're eligible for), but even not very tangible things can be useful (like, representing your country in the IGY hydrology committee. IDK the Heebieville equivalent, but I bet here is one.)
-An actor can gain influence by manipulating definitions and terms of reference (eg. SA talked itself into the NSG by defining uranium ore as 'nuclear'; maybe heebieville education committee can talk itself into the zoning plan by arguing its teachers can't afford mortgages but can afford to rent ADUs).

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything bought, sold, or processed."

There's a weird thing here now where slot machines are called "games of skill" are now in lots of small businesses like convenience stores.

Yes, and as long as they are designed in a certain way, they qualify as bingo. And charities can run bingo nights. And private consultants can run the bingo halls where charities host their bingo nights. And so a private consultant can run slots parlor, call it a bingo hall, and as long as a rotating set of charities are willing to accept a portion the proceeds, all is good under current regulations.

And then you get to questions like "why are the Humane Society and the Friends of the Public Library being asked to promote casino gambling?" and the answer, of course, is because freedom.

slot machines are called "games of skill"

By that logic, almost seems like cigarette vending machines should count as well.

"The slot machines are kinda fun, but I'm way, way better at this game. Here, watch."

I'm sure someone has tried it.

cigarette vending machines should count as well.

Also, printers.

The odds aren't good enough when using a printer.

The skill is not having the pack lean against the glass and fail to fall. Advanced players understand how to shake the machine when this happens. It's how you tell the pros from the hobbyists.

My dad used to let me go to the machine to get him cigarettes.

According to Reddit, there's still a working cigarette machine in a local bar. They strapped a bill acceptor on the side because of the high price. Smoking bars don't let anyone under 21 in at any time, so I guess it's legal.

I have made great use of the quote in 32 at the time, it applies in many situations, but it doesn't mean sunlight is the principal antidote - especially not a planning process that tries to achieve consensus across all complainers.

For infill housing, one hearing to inform the community and let the developer take input they can act on at their discretion is sufficient for bigger projects. Smaller, just share the documents and an email box.

Meanwhile our Department of Highways (derogatory) holds many, many public hearings as part of bulldozing toward the only outcome they accept, more highway-lanes.

There's like a box of pennies and you just count what's left at the end of the year?

Well, many of the funds are self-explanatory: the stormwater fund, the electricity fund, the water fund, etc. It's only a black box when it comes to anything remotely controversial.

Also it took me almost three years of watching the budget process for me to figure out why it was so confusing. For such an obvious omission, a slick 200 page polished-looking, readable document with lots of graphics and generic statements and photos about the pleasantness of your city. can really make you feel like you're just the one missing something obvious.

Spiral bound?

PDF.

Oh that's no good. We get to have spiral bound copies where you can go to the page you and highlight shit and write down notes in the margins for you to reference while asking picayune questions about the details. I would say its good for accountability.

Does Kinko's still make those?

I bet Council can get hardbound copies if they'd like, but friendly marxist bloggers generally just get directed to the link.

Only Council has access to the people who know how the printer works, the one next to the cigarette vending machine in the smoke-filled room where line items are vetoed in ash.

35: That's a bizarre process that I've never heard of any other city using. Most start with the part where they find out how much money they'll have.

That's actually helpful to know! I wonder if it's a Texas thing somehow.

For example, here's our process:

Every fall, OMB submits the mayor's budget to the Assembly, typically around the first of October (the legal requirement is 90-days before the end of the year). After that, the Assembly holds two worksessions in October to hear from municipal departments and the utilities and enterprises on their budgets and one worksession in November to discuss possible budget amendments. Public hearings on the budget are held in October and November and the budget is typically approved at the last Assembly meeting in November. From there, the budget is implimented by the Administration beginning January 1.

The Mayor's current proposed budget is here, broken down by department.

Does that leave enough room for when a bridge collapses in the middle of the fiscal year?

Or a bus falls through the road into a sinkhole?

I think it's common here for budgets to break down both by general purpose and by department, separate tables.

66: It does!

The process is repeated on a smaller scale each April in what is called the 1st Quarter Budget Revision. This gives the municipality a chance to see where the previous year's revenue and expenses actually fell and make adjustments as needed, since the budget is based on projections from the previous fall.

(Snow plowing, on the other hand...)

Let's all post our SAT scores and municipal budgets.

Our plan is to have Biden show up the next day.

I feel like he probably doesn't have enough upper-body strength.

His eyes melt snow.

California recently changed the acronym for the audited financial report (retrospective) from CAFR to ACFR to avoid it sounding like the South African slur. Maybe that happened nationally too.

I kind of doubt anywhere else noticed.

65 Have you told the U.S. House about this? Seems like it could be a game changer for them.

I'm an idiot! I found the general fund breakdown in the budget. I will say that all the things about departments championing their needs regarding next year's budget are mostly hidden from the public eye.

Everyone carry on!

[on work computer so PM-ing it]

As a general discussion of strategies, strategic plans, and goals of universities and colleges, the Higher Ed Strategy blog is pretty good. See for example:

https://higheredstrategy.com/strategy-should-hurt-ways-to-make-it-bearable/

But regional planning was going on, and Mumford vigorously advocated it. And since the regionally sensitive population remained to be created, planning couldn't be, in Mumfordian terms, democratic; it could only be what it often seemed, mandarin. When local people agreed with planners, they were evidence of a vigorous regional culture. When they disagreed, they were representatives of narrow local interest.