MIDLAND, Texas — Midland City Council members, Mayor Lori Blong and other city department heads met to discuss what is important to the city and where they want to see the city in years to come.
"We discuss what's going on in the upcoming year, so it's a good time to dialogue through what are the needs and the main priorities for us to work through in the next year, but also planning ahead to the next five, 10 and 20 years," said Mayor Blong.
During the meeting Friday they discussed goals specifically for the next five years.
"The first one is, is that Midland would be a great place to live, that we would be a premier city in West Texas. The second thing is to upgrade city facilities and infrastructure through investment, living within the budget, within the community but also going back and making sure we're investing in those facilities and infrastructure. The third thing is, is the high performing Midland City team, to continue to work through workforce challenges for recruiting and retention in our community and to make sure we're addressing those needs effectively and efficiently and the fourth thing would be a strong economy with more jobs," said Blong.
The group got together and brainstormed on the best ways to achieve those goals.
"We're all interacting, communicating freely and we're able to talk about what are the needs, what were doing well and how we move into the future," said Blong.
This is some of the first steps to starting new projects and deciding where to put city money.
"We're setting those intentional priorities first so that the budget reflects what we want to accomplish," said Blong. "This is going to be an ongoing dialogue between staff members and council as we make a decision about where we go from here, so it's the first step in the future planning of Midland."