Mayor Jeffrey W. Hall's Transition Plan
In December 2018, Mayor Jeffrey Hall was sworn in as Mayor of Alexandria, Louisiana, marking a new day for the city and central Louisiana. Supported by a vision of unity, quality of life, economic growth, and high-functioning City government, the early days of Mayor Hall’s administration featured the addition of highly qualified professionals to his senior leadership team and a commitment to inclusion and collaboration with the surrounding Alexandria community. As the Hall administration began to intently assess City government operations, it became evident that a clear, organized approach would be necessary to systematically address areas in need of improvement, refinement, or support – particularly those that could be addressed in the near-term and represented positive, forward progress for the City. Mayor Hall and his administration subsequently embarked on a formal transition planning process, supported by Louisiana-based management consulting firm Emergent Method.
This process involved detailed research of City policies, procedures, plans, and other documentation, as well as meetings with key division and department leadership to gain a clear understanding of the current state of operations in each functional area. Extensive reviews of background information supported and helped to reveal priority areas for the City. Additionally, detailed input was gathered from approximately 60 community stakeholders through the formation and meetings of a Transition Team and five topic-specific subcommittees – Quality of Life, Public Safety, Infrastructure, Community Services, and Support Services. The composition of these subcommittees included members based on relevant industries, interests, skillsets, and representations of various parts of the Alexandria community. Each group met twice and provided additional feedback over the course of a three-month timeframe on the goals the City should prioritize to meaningfully impact its citizens, business owners, and employees. The subcommittees sought to answer one fundamental question – what programs, projects, initiatives, or strategies are valuable enough to undertake in the short-term given the impact they may have combined with their relative ease of implementation?
Wishing to create an immediate impact and supplement the work already underway within the City, this short-term transition planning effort focused on identifying the goals and priorities, both internal and external, that the Hall administration could accomplish within the next several months to a year – thereby establishing momentum toward longer-term, multi-year goals. As such, this transition plan includes many short-term recommendations for each subcommittee focus area – action items that are high impact and high priority while still having an implementation timeline of less than approximately a year. To serve as a foundation for future planning efforts, the plan also includes several long-term considerations identified within each subcommittee focus area.