Mayor's Report

Mark and Terry are good citizens.

They are engaged, observant and care deeply for our City. They regularly attend Council meetings and, when they do, their comments are insightful and important. Noteworthy is their ability to communicate issues with civility, an uncommon practice today. Criticisms or suggestions are almost always followed by a compliment or nod of approval about other matters.

Recently one of them asked about my performance over the past year. Specifically, he inquired about how well I have been meeting the goals established in my campaign platform developed in the Fall of 2017. This platform was drafted, with the assistance of another good citizen, Bruce.

The task of measuring performance against promises is valuable and the exercise helped me assess the relevance of my goals and how successful I’ve been in meeting them. My platform was built on three pillars: Vision, Experience and Leadership. Within each of these we identified an objective, a reason for the goal and notes about each. To evaluate my performance, I applied a grade to each of the suggestions based on the typical grading scale of A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1 and F=0. I then tallied and averaged my grades for each of my 30 platform suggestions. In reviewing the past 14 months we have some great successes, but we still have work to accomplish. We have made great strides in re-imagining our Downtown, we have made improvements and increased investments on our north shore Gateway District, we have improved our community communications systems and we have kept watchful eyes on our budget. These were all accomplished with the support of our City Council and the efforts of our City Administrators. However, with these successes there are few things left to accomplish. One is the development of a 10-year strategic plan. Next year will be the final year of planning for our Civic Vision 2020 and it is the ideal time to initiate the planning of Civic Vision 2030. A second will be to establish a clear set of performance standards for City employees, including me. And finally, I will focus on more direct interaction with our community through council ward meetings, neighborhood get-togethers and civic organizations’ meetings.

If anyone is interested on how I scored myself, I posted the results of my report card on my www.fialaformayor.com website, where the platform resides. I would also be happy to forward this if you contact me via email at rfiala@willoughbyohio.com or at City Hall 440-953-4124.

If anyone is interested, my composite grade was a B.