ABC Newspapers, this link.
The consultant is Anita Duckor of Duckor and Associates. Sakry's report provides detail.
Among other items, Duckor's website notes, "Directed and developed a strategic plan with Minnesota Land Trust that charted the course for mission-driven growth."
The Land Trust is where, until recently, Mayor Strommen was employed - her day job.
Strommen has indicated to me she was impressed by the Land Trust consulting and suggested Duckor would be helpful in city officials' setting of city goals and priorities.
She also carefully put on record at the televised meeting a similar disclosure of past activity, so that public notice of it was neither withheld nor obscured.
In the most recent council work session (untelevised) Duckor spoke of an intended final deliverable that would be a self-actuating plan or road map, one the City Administrator and staff could apply, without any long-ongoing consultancy arrangement of the kind Ramsey's had in other consultancy situations.
Council and staff would, as part of the deliverable, have a clear presentation of expenditure priorities so that citizens could see a view in advance. Hence, for example, when budget constraints may happen there would have been prior notice of what services would be expected to be affected and curtailed. There would be advance setting of priorities, not a situation of myopic ad hoc juggling where a priority du juor might trump yesterday's municipal gold standard, in a disjointed and inefficient fashion.
That is the story at the start. As always the proof is in the pudding, the devil in the details, tomorrow is another day, and Satchel Paige's nostrum applies, "Don't never look back, something might be gaining on you."
Staff stability and morale may be better set by this.
We shall wait and see.
