Hello, Middleburg!

This month's column provides a brief update on Town Council's recent "visioning" exercises. The Town has posted its new, 2017, Vision Statement on the Town website. To view it, go to www.middleburgva.gov, then select GOVERNMENT in the top menu, scroll to TOWN COUNCIL and select VISION STATEMENT.

Developing a new vision statement is a valuable exercise whenever council members change. Last year, you may recall, Middleburg elected four new members to the council (over half) and, as expected, the product of their visioning efforts produced no radical surprises.

But the discussions among members during their two-day visioning sessions proved a valuable experience for all of us. We appreciated the opportunity to discuss our goals and visions together, and we finished with a better sense of this council, and, I believe, a much more cohesive and unified body.

In our May work session, the council selected the following top ten vision statements as priorities. We are now developing action plans to realize them. You can see each goal under its subject area (underlined below) in the Vision Statement on the Town website.

Practice Good Governance: Post the Vision-Mission-Initiatives on the Website.

Practice Good Governance: Host reception for council-appointed boards and commissions.

Community/Economic Well-Being: Craft/Adopt a business/economic development strategy for Middleburg.

Practice Good Governance: Implement the Wayfinding program.

Community Engagement: Create a Land-use planning partnership with Loudoun County.

Practice Good Governance: Conduct a town office staff needs assessment.

Practice Good Governance: Place a Mayor's memo or message on the Town website and newspaper every quarter.

Community/Economic Well-Being: Develop a Middleburg Brand.

Community/Economic Well-Being: Perform a downtown parking study.

Fund the Future: Adopt a CIP (capital improvement plan) with a capital maintenance component.

We tasked each member of council to examine the ten goals. We each looked at four criteria for each one. Council will discuss these criteria in our next meeting: Who are the stakeholders or key team members? What resources will we need to accomplish it? What is a realistic schedule? What is the desired outcome and/or how will council measure the results? The Town Clerk is compiling what each of sent her and council will discuss and finalize the compiled results.

Some goals are due soon. The first is complete, as the Town posted the new Vision Statement on our website. Some will require more time. However, all ten are due by 2020, and the council hopes to complete them sooner.

Please examine the full Vision statement and let me know if we missed any. Also, please let me know if council selected the top ten correctly from all of the statements in the new Vision Statement. This is a good milestone for the new council.

That is my opinion – what do you think?