JH 30 Stategic Plan Exec. Summary

Executive Summary (Click image to enlarge)

LTD Strategic Plan
Or as Joe Hill likes to think of it, LTD'S Strategic Bomb. This plan document is laughable. Written by LTD bosses and spoon fed to the LTD Board, and the imposed soviet style on the Community. Employee comment and input - Zero! Community Stakeholder input or Comment - ZERO. Minority viewpoints presented to the LTD Board for consideration - ZERO. So perhaps the LTD Board should be known as the LTD Polit Burro.

We here at the Joe Hill Solidarity Project can hardly wait for the next five year plan to be announced by Uncle Gerry and Kommisar Hamm.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This section might be more appropriately named "history of this plan." Summary should give a few key points to save the reader the necessity of reading the entire document to understand the point of it. LTD, thanks for the memories, but what are you really saying? As you will see they are saying one thing and one thing only!

Perhaps the priorities are revealed as financial first and operational plans second.

In 1997, the Board of Directors of Lane Transit District (LTD) adopted a Strategic Plan that was developed through a comprehensive plan development process. A process that did not include any employee participation, community participation, or minority viewpoint consideration. The plan updated the district’s mission and goals, and was designed to determine the organization’s direction and to focus organizational efforts to achieve the District’s mission. The plan endeavored to set a vision for the future that, combined with financial and operational plans, became the road map for achieving LTD’s long-term objective of enhancing the community’s quality of life. The Road Map metaphor is clever, but come on, how does cutting service fulfill this objective? It does when financial plans outweigh the operational plans. Certainly one would think that cutting service hurts the community. I have to say that this statement is confusing.

Since the 1997 plan was adopted, minor changes have been made to the plan, but none since 1998. In 2002, the Board of Directors directed the General Manager to update the strategic plan as part of the General Managers Goals and Objectives for 2002-2003. Who Cares? The District’s vision, mission statement, and guiding principles were updated in 2001 and will form the basis for the new Strategic Plan. These we will be examining in the near future. You can only be as good as your values, and how willing you are to stick with them. Values should be the unchanging glue that holds the plan together. Instead, they stick these values up on the walls and no one reads them and no one cares what they are, especially the Board and Hamm. The 2003 Strategic Plan is based on the development of five goal statements that reflect the District’s Mission Statement and Goals. The Board’s goal was to create a dynamic plan that was closely tied to the District’s short-range financial plan, and reflected the need to implement an aggressive capital agenda during difficult economic times. These words needed to be enlarged to show what they are. An aggressive capital agenda? How revealing is that? What about an aggressive service agenda? I can tell you that recent history demonstrates that the Board and the Management are willing to undo nearly every previous service standard and accomplishment to meet this "aggressive capital agenda." The history of this capital agenda has been a miserable failure so far, and it deserves some revisiting by the Board and the Managers. Or even... do we dare believe that they might ask us what we think about their plan? I don't think they will do that.

Strategic Goal Statements:

• DELIVER RELIABLE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SERVICE That's why we cut service every year.
• DEVELOP INNOVATIVE SERVICE THAT REDUCES DEPENDENCY ON THE AUTOMOBILE If the Breeze is an example of your innovation, then BRT is going to be a disaster.
• MAINTAIN LTD’S FISCAL INTEGRITY - Blowing millions for the Breeze and over spending on the BRT is the best way to live up to this goal. I guess that's why we are going to have to lay down on LTD contract demands. The integrity has to come from someplace. By the way, what does this mean anyway? Fiscal integrity means to me you won't steal the money.
• PROVIDE PROGRESSIVE LEADERSHIP FOR THE COMMUNITY’S TRANSPORTATION NEEDS - Leadership means that the community is following, or is in step with you. Who would know? Did the community get a say in service reductions? Did the Community get a say in fare increases? Did the community get a say in the payroll tax increase? I guess they did - all in opposition. Just what LTD needs - leadership that listens!
• DEVELOP A TEAM ENVIRONMENT You have got to be kidding!
  
• For each Goal Statement, a set of short term implementation strategies were identified and prioritized. Short-term implementation strategies are defined as those that can be completed within the district’s two-year capital improvements plan, and are programmed as such in the capital improvements program (CIP). Long-term implementation strategies were also identified for each goal statement as strategies that were a high priority for implementation two to five years from the implementation of the draft strategic plan. Performance measures have been identified for each goal statement. These measures will provide guidelines for developing specific performance indicators to measure LTD'S success in achieving the plan goals.

LANE TRANSIT DISTRICT VISION
To be the best transit system in North America.

We were closer to this vision five years ago. Now we are hiding mistakes, blowing money, getting top heavy in management pay and equity with the bargaining unit, and destroyed what could have been a loyal and willing work force. Best yeah sure...if that's what you say.

This is the Joe Hill Review of the executive summary of the Strategic Plan. More is coming. It will reveal how inflexible the plan is, and how capital heavy in emphasis it is. LTD Polit Burro is lead around by their noses by the management, but they are responsible for letting that happen - so they get the blame too. Some representative of the citizens. I don't know about you, but I intend to let the Governor know how I feel about his appointments and the waste of taxpayer funds that is occurring under their watchful governance.

In Solidarity,
Joe Hill