T-R PHOTOS BY JOE FISHER — Police Chief Mike Tupper, finance director Diana Steiner councilor Gabe Isom and public works director Heather Thomas analyze proposed actions for the 2022 strategic plan during a planning session on Monday.

Diversity, speeding and building inspections were among the most debated topics at the 2022 strategic planning session held on Monday.

City council members and staff met at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to review the strategic plan for 2021 and begin drafting their plan for next year. The session included newly elected council members Dex Walker, Barry Kell and Jeff Schneider, whose terms will begin on Jan. 1.

Susan Parker, a consultant with Sparker Solutions, led the meeting. Council and staff were broken into smaller groups to discuss four topics or projects which could be undertaken in 2022: a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative, automated traffic enforcement, contracting out inspection services and franchise fees and other revenue options.

Each group was assigned one of these topics and tasked with creating a proposal for why it should be a top priority, needs more investigation or should not be part of the 2022 plan at all.

The discussion which garnered the most debate was how Marshalltown should address diversity, equity and inclusion in 2022. In September, the council approved dissolving the Human Rights Commission because it hadn’t been able to fill the commission with volunteers in recent years. The city is still served at the state level by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Consultant Susan Parker of Sparker Solutions leads the Marshalltown City Council and city staff through the strategic planning session at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Monday.

Councilor Gary Thompson presented his group’s thoughts on tackling the DEI initiative in 2022.

“Our proposal is to put it in the trash can. It’s not an issue,” Thompson said.

The rest of the room was asked to vote whether it agreed or disagreed with the proposal, which appeared to be an evenly split vote. Kell disagreed with Thompson’s assessment.

“If you go to our SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, we talk about the diversity our community has and about needing a better way to promote it. There’s really a conflicting message there,” he said. “This is the way the business environment is going. DEI is a huge initiative globally. There is an opportunity for us to ask questions. For us to say that doesn’t apply to us, I don’t agree.”

Councilman Al Hoop agreed with Kell.

“Diversity probably has to be the number one issue with our population right now,” Hoop said.

Thompson asked whether DEI is something the council needs to be involved in or if the city departments could implement processes without direction from the council. Kinser noted the strategic plan is a tool used to evaluate staff positions, and if something doesn’t appear in the plan, it may not be approached as a priority.

“If it’s not in here, we should not be working on it,” she said. “It’s big enough. It’s got to be included.”

Police Chief Mike Tupper said there may be policies in place which create disparity or inequity without department heads being aware, unless they investigate more closely.

“What we found in our own internal training programs (was) there were a lot of things we just weren’t thinking about,” he said. “There’s a lot of white faces in this room. We have to find a way to reach out to people and make sure they know what matters to them matters to us.”

Police Chief Mike Tupper explains to his group how automated traffic enforcement could benefit the police department and public safety during Monday’s strategic planning session.

Michelle Sponheimer, housing and community development director, said DEI is more than a hiring issue, and she believed the council should be involved in the initiative.

“This is how we interact with the public coming in needing services. I do think it needs to come from the top down,” she said.

Councilor Gabe Isom asked what action would be taken regarding DEI. Kinser said she would assemble a committee including staff and council members to review policies and procedures. The goal of the committee would be to fix policies which create disparity or inequity in the community.

A majority of those in attendance were in favor of using automated traffic enforcement. Tupper introduced the idea, which would involve the city requesting proposals for equipment and services which could be used to curb speeding in areas of town where complaints are common. Tupper said the police department is already understaffed and is unable to respond to the number of speeding complaints it receives.

“I have enough work for 50 people. We have 42 on staff,” he said. “The number one complaint I receive almost on a daily basis — it’s traffic.”

Tupper said automated traffic enforcement is a lower cost option than hiring additional officers, and it could present a revenue opportunity. He also cited traffic enforcement as one of the most dangerous aspects of policing. He suggested at least 50 places in the city where automated traffic enforcement would be useful.

Schneider voted against this idea moving forward in 2022 but said he could be talked into an alternative if he had more information. Thompson said he doesn’t like the idea of contracting services outside of Marshalltown, and he added that he knew of people who would volunteer to write tickets. Tupper responded, again noting the dangers of traffic enforcement.

“If we’re going to train volunteers to write tickets, we need to start equipping them like police officers,” Tupper said. “Our parking enforcement people deal with a lot of abuse I wouldn’t want to put a volunteer through.”

Sponheimer and fire chief Dave Rierson introduced the idea of contracting inspection services. Sponheimer said the last three years have been difficult on staff when it comes to building and housing inspections. The goal is generally to inspect a building every three years, but some buildings are only being inspected every five years.

Rierson said the priority is to inspect permitted occupancies such as restaurants, bars and churches, but he doesn’t have the manpower to keep up with all of the inspections.

Parks and recreation director Geoff Hubbard weighs in during the strategic planning session at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Monday.

“I just can’t get the people there,” he said. “We’re looking at 211, 212 or so permitted occupancies and 300 or more business occupancies to get inspected, and we’re not getting even close.”

Kell asked if there were local firms who could handle the task, but Spohnheimer said the service would come from outside of Marshall County. Kell and his group proposed gathering more information before making a decision.

Schneider voted against taking a slower approach to this issue. Instead, he would rather see something done more immediately.

“I think we do this right now,” he said. “It gives us a lot of flexibility. There are a lot of positives to it.”

At the conclusion of the session, Parker directed the council and staff to go to four poster boards which were hanging around the room, each marked with one of the goals the city has carried as part of its strategic plan for the last 3 years: expanding and improving development in the community, enhancing Marshalltown’s public image, continually improving the city’s organizations and services, and partnering with citizens, for profit, nonprofit and other groups to improve quality of life.

Councilors Al Hoop, Jeff Schneider and Bethany Wirin, library director Sarah Rosenblum and parks and recreation director Geoff Hubbard discuss how the city can improve on its development goals in 2022.

The council and staff then voted on three projects or actions under each goal which they view as priorities. Parker will include the vote tallies in a spreadsheet she will share with the council and staff at a later date. Parker clarified some of the actions may not have received votes because they are already expected to be completed.

Kinser mentioned how different this year’s strategic planning session was compared to the last in-person session held in 2019. Last year, the session was held virtually because of a spike in COVID-19 cases.

“Two years ago, we didn’t have much transition. This year, we have a lot of transition,” she said. “I do appreciate that Bethany (Wirin) is here, and there is that peaceful transition of power we all strive for.”

Wirin has served on the city council for 16 years and her final term will end on Dec. 31. She did not seek re-election.

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Contact Joe Fisher at news@timesrepublican.com.