PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles city council unanimously adopted a 2025-2026 strategic plan, which sets the council’s focus and priorities over the next two years.
“The primary role of the strategic plan is to ensure alignment of council priorities, and to really establish a shared focus for the city of Port Angeles over the next two years,” city manager Nathan West said.
Next steps for city staff include developing a work plan, which will lay out specific ways the strategic plan might be implemented.
This version of the city’s strategic plan has four focus areas: community resilience, citywide resource optimization, housing and infrastructure development, maintenance and connectivity.
Each focus area branches into specific goals and then into specific measures.
The community resilience focus area has goals of increasing community engagement outreach, reinforcing environmental stewardship, improving public safety and peace of mind, expanding application of disaster preparedness and emergency response practices, developing plans for economic stability during unprecedented events and improving community health, wellness and resilience.
Citywide resource optimization focus area has goals of maintaining fiscal health, growing staff capacity, maximizing grant funding and support for state funding, promoting policies that create efficient practices, advocating for adequate and non-regressive state revenue and stabilizing utility resources for changing environments.
The housing focus area goals include incorporating housing needs into the comprehensive plan, updating the city housing action plan, continuing the multi-family housing pilot project, aiding private new construction of an apartment complex and incentivizing development and vacant land conversion.
Infrastructure development, maintenance and connectivity focus area goals include ensuring adequate wastewater capacity for housing and commercial opportunities, improving connectivity between neighborhoods and improving pedestrian access to downtown.
To view the full strategic plan, visit the city’s website.
“[The strategic plan] really is about knowing that we have an overwhelming amount of work to do as a community, and as an organization,” West said.
The city has been “extremely successful” at accomplishing recent strategic plans, West said.
“A great example is housing,” he added. “[Port Angeles] is absolutely leading the way for a community of our size when it comes to innovation in housing.”
However, West said the city still had a lot of work to do regarding housing, and the 2025-2026 strategic plan is “taking things a step further.”
The strategic plan is just one of several plans that the state requires local governments to complete periodically.
The 20-year comprehensive plan, which is currently being updated, is an overarching document that informs the city budget, strategic plan, capital facilities plan and long-range financial plan.
Now that the strategic plan has been adopted, city staff will prepare a work plan that identifies specific ways the strategic plan can be implemented.
The strategic plan is a “policy-level document,” West said, while the work plan is administratively focused and provides daily guidance for staff.
West provided an example of the types of things a future work plan could include, based on the measures identified in the 2025-2026 strategic plan.
The citywide resource optimization focus area leads to a goal of stabilizing utility resources for changing environments, West said. One of the measures under that goal is to evaluate water storage and/or source alternatives to the Elwha River by the end of 2026.
Staff could implement that example measure in a number of ways, West said, including completing a study, engaging in a professional services contract, building a new water facility or a variety of other options.
“Those are kind of ‘what if’ examples trying to illustrate that, after the council has laid these things out, staff has the responsibility to get the contracts executed,” West said.
This year, all seven council members unanimously approved the strategic plan.
“It really illustrates we’re all on the same page,” West said. “It’s helpful to take time to get it right.”
To help with the development of the strategic plan, the city hired Clarity Consulting Partners for an amount not to exceed $14,980, according to West.
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Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
