Something Has Been Taking Shape

Town halls. Kitchen-table conversations. Emails, phone calls, front porches, the line at the grocery store. A lot of you have told the council and the city what you love about Tremonton, what you’re worried about, and what you’d like to see change. That input didn’t disappear into a filing cabinet. It’s been shaping something.

What we have now is a working draft of a Strategic Framework for the city. It includes a mission, a vision, and four pillars that name what we’re aiming at as a community. This has been a real team effort. Council members, our city manager, and department heads across the city have all worked to shape it, and every one of them has brought residents’ voices to the table. It’s not adopted policy yet. The council will be discussing the fourth pillar, Connected to Positive Well-Being, at our July 7 meeting, and the full framework at our July 21 meeting. We want you to see it before those conversations happen. Because the whole point of this is that it’s ours, not just the council’s.

Here’s the shape of it.

Mission and Vision

That’s the aim. Everything else answers the question of how we get there.

The Four Pillars

The council is organizing the city’s work around four pillars. Each one names a way we want to be connected, because that’s what a real community is.

• Connected to the Good LifeWhat it feels like to live here. Parks, recreation, small-town character, room for kids to grow up well.
• Connected to Each OtherBelonging, trust, and how we treat one another. The transparency and civic conversation that hold a community together.
• Connected to Peace and SecurityPublic safety, stable neighborhoods, and the everyday peace of good neighbors.
• Connected to Positive Well-BeingMental health, physical health, and the fiscal capacity that sustains a healthy city over time.

That’s the whole thing at a glance. Each pillar has real challenges under it and real outcomes the city is aiming for over the next two years. You’ll be able to see the full framework at the council meetings and, soon, on the new city website.

But before we get to the website, there’s something more important to say.

Three Lanes, One Community

This is the part to hear closely, because it matters more than any pillar. A healthy city runs on three lanes. Each one does a different job. None of them works without the others.

• The Mayor and Council set direction.The council adopts the mission, the vision, the pillars. Approves the strategies. Decides what Tremonton is aiming at, not how each department gets there. That’s the council’s lane.
• The City Manager and staff carry the direction forward.They translate what the council decides into real work. Department goals, timelines, and the operational expertise that turns an idea on paper into something you can see and use. They bring their experience back to the council so we can make better decisions.
• Residents of Tremonton give true input.You tell the council what matters. You show up at meetings, respond to surveys, have conversations with your neighbors, and hold the city accountable to its mission. Without your voice, the first two lanes are guessing.

That’s not rhetoric or political language. That’s how a small town works when it’s working right. Nobody is above anyone else. Nobody’s voice matters more than anyone else’s. We’re neighbors first, and everything else follows from that.

When you show up at a council meeting, respond to a survey, or walk over to a council member at the grocery store to tell them what you’re seeing, you’re not interrupting the process. You are the process.

A New Front Door

The city is targeting August 1 for the launch of a brand new website. If the migration keeps going the way it’s been going, that’s when you’ll see it live.

It’s designed to make the third lane easier, to give residents a real front door to City Hall. The Strategic Framework will live there. So will council meeting information, city data, and ways to give input that don’t require driving down to a public meeting on a Tuesday night.

Because it’s being built in the open, one thing to say plainly. It won’t be perfect on day one. No website is. And that’s where you come in, again.

When you see something on the new site that’s broken, confusing, or missing something you need, tell us. There will be a suggestions option built right into the site, and you can always email city hall directly. Every suggestion helps make it better. We’d rather hear about a problem than have you quietly give up on finding what you needed.

Two Meetings and an Open Door

A few things to do this month.

• Tuesday, July 7 · Council MeetingThe fourth pillar, Connected to Positive Well-Being, is on the agenda for discussion. If mental health, physical health, or the city’s fiscal capacity are things you care about, come see what’s being worked on. Tell us what we got right. Tell us what we missed.
• Tuesday, July 21 · Council MeetingThe council plans to take up the full Strategic Framework at this meeting and start preparing to roll out the strategies underneath it. If you want a look at the whole picture, mission, vision, all four pillars, and where the city is headed, this is the one.

Both meetings are at 7:00 PM at City Hall.

Reach out any time. Any council member, any time. Share a concern, an idea, or something good that’s happening in your part of town. All three lanes matter, and the third one is the one we can’t do without.