I read the article of the completion of the upgrade to the towns Strategic Plan and noted that there were no action plans, objectives or timelines in the piece. Thinking that it must be for the purposes of space in the paper, I went to the Town’s home page and found that the new plan had not yet been posted there and only the 2010 version was available.

At the risk of perils associated with making assumptions and the article’s statement that the existing plan was “updated,” I read through it and found that it did not include anything related to how the plan would be implemented nor who was responsible. One glaring failure was the item related to “identifying a reliable source of revenue for the town.” We can but hope these shortcomings are corrected in the updated plan.

Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy.

Admittedly, a strategic plan is a long-term statement, painted with a broad bush, but should assign responsibilities and timelines for achieving stated objectives via the creation of an action plan, which should be updated more frequently. I see no evidence of this in either the article in The Times or in the original strategic plan.

I applaud the efforts of the committee and the Council but stress the point that we, as a town, must take the next step and get on with finishing the job to make Fountain Hills the best community in the Valley!

I leave you with the words of one of the most famous basketball coaches of all time, John Wooden: “Failure to plan is planning to fail.”