Riverside has approved its list of strategic goals for the village for 2024 two months later than initially planned.
At its March 7 meeting, the Riverside village board adopted the list as part of its 2024 budget document. Each of the 10 goals on the list represents an endeavor that the board or Riverside residents hope the village will pursue or continue to work on throughout the rest of the year. According to a village memo, the list of goals was supposed to have been adopted in January.
“These are in no particular order,” said Village President Douglas Pollock about the goals at the meeting. “They’re all of equal priority. We have the ability to address all of these goals, so there’s no reason, in my mind, to prioritize.”
While the goals vary in scope and department, many are formal declarations of objectives the village had already been working toward. For example, one of Riverside’s goals for 2024 is to plan celebrations for the village’s sesquicentennial, or 150th anniversary, next year. Other goals for the village include continuing to expand sustainability initiatives, addressing previously identified public facility needs and maintaining Riverside’s AA+ credit rating.
At Thursday’s meeting, Pollock said the goal of attracting and retaining businesses to Riverside “stood out” as one that survey respondents highly prioritized.
“Our community is well aware of our need and the benefits of attracting and retaining businesses,” he said. “They not only provide revenue for village services, they provide services to our residents, so they can get those services in town, and they don’t have to leave town for a good restaurant or a haircut, whatever the case may be.”
The list of goals was first mentioned at a village board meeting in September 2023, when former Village Finance Director Karin Johns told the board that each of Riverside’s departments, boards and commissions had created a list of its accomplishments from 2023 and its goals for 2024 to be included in the 2024 budget. At that meeting, Pollock, a village trustee at the time, suggested the village board identify its own goals for 2024 in a similar way.
Then, at a board meeting in November 2023, Pollock, as village president, directed Riverside’s trustees to review and rank a consolidated list of the goals from across the village. At that meeting, trustee Megan Claucherty suggested creating a survey for residents to rank the village’s list and share their own goals with village staff.
That survey went live on Riverside’s website Jan. 4. At the Feb. 15 board meeting, Village Manager Jessica Frances said the survey had received more than 400 responses from residents, representing a “statistically significant sample size” according to the meeting minutes.
From the survey results and the trustees’ opinions, village staff presented a preliminary set of 22 goals at the Feb. 15. At the board’s direction, that list was pared down to combine similar goals and remove duplicate entries, leaving the list of 10 that the board ultimately approved Thursday.
“I think having those goals is very important for the community to know what is important to us,” Pollock said at the meeting. “It’s important for staff to know so they know what to work on. It’s not only a statement of goals; it’s a statement of our values and what we value as a community.”
Riverside is required to adopt a set of strategic goals as part of its budget each year in order to meet the standards of the Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Budget Presentation Award Program, which recognizes local governments across the United States for creating budget documents “of the very highest quality” that each “excel as a policy document, financial plan, operations guide, and communication tool,” according to the program’s website. Without the goals list in its budget, Riverside would be ineligible for the award.
The list of Riverside’s strategic goals for 2024 is as follows:
- “Continue to prioritize infrastructure improvements.
- Initiate new programs or activities intended to attract and retain businesses.
- Continue to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to reduce flooding and/or the consequences of flooding in the neighborhood around Forest Avenue, Groveland Avenue and West Avenue.
- Expand and improve Parks and Recreation Department programming.
- Create a plan to address space and facilities needs.
- Continue to implement and expand sustainability and environmental health initiatives.
- Plan and implement events and recognitions for the Riverside sesquicentennial (150) celebration.
- Improve the appearance of major transportation corridors, including the BNSF trainscape.
- Foster more collaboration and a stronger working relationship with other local governmental bodies, including but not limited to local School Districts 96 and 208.
- Maintain and strive to improve the Village’s AA+ credit rating.”
