Newberry and council hold retreat

For the first time in recent memory, Lexington’s Urban County Council held a retreat with Mayor Jim Newberry and his staff Friday.

The council usually holds a goal setting retreat when a new vice mayor is elected, but it doesn’t typically include the mayor or any other members of the administration.

The council, Newberry, his aides and the city’s commissioners spent the day at Shaker Village and set several priorities for the upcoming year.

The council and Newberry’s staff held separate brainstorming sessions before coming together in a larger group to identify common goals.

The city will focus on:

• Environmental issues which includes sanitary sewer and stormwater problems and protecting Lexington’s signature greenspace.
• A vision for Lexington’s future.
• A 21st century economic development model which includes working with officials in Frankfort and keeping jobs in Lexington.
• Innovative planning which includes spending state and federal dollars as they become available, updating the city’s infrastructure and a comprehensive re-engineering of the way planning is done in Lexington.
• Open and respectful communication which includes additional formal and informal meetings of the mayor and council, a unified legislative agenda with groups in the city such as Commerce Lexington and the University of Kentucky, and better utilization of the city’s web site and GTV3, the city’s cable channel on Insight Channel 3, to communicate with residents.
• Government efficiency which includes additional audits to identify management or financial problems and streamline the number of government meetings that are held.

“If we were to get half of them done, it would be a pretty good year,” Newberry said. “If we get them all done, it would be a great year.”

Today’s retreat is one of several get-togethers — outside of work sessions and council meetings — that Newberry and the council have had since the Nov. 7 election.

Newberry set the tone for a better working relationship between the mayor and the council when he invited the newly elected council over to his house for coffee and doughnuts just three days after the election.

Two weeks ago, Newberry invited the council to attend the city’s annual budget retreat which marks the start of the budget planning process. It was the first time the council saw how the priorities that will be used in preparing the budget are set.

The council only had one get-together with former Mayor Teresa Isaac during her term. That gathering was a pot luck hosted by Councilman David Stevens.

- Michelle Ku