Bloomfield Township to hold community forums on strategic plan

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP — Bloomfield Township is working on a new long-term strategic plan to serve as a guide for the area for the future.

“A strategic plan is important because it allows the community, as a whole, to decide our vision for the future together. … It helps us develop the goals and the plan needed to successfully achieve that vision,” said Township Supervisor Dani Walsh.

The township’s last strategic plan was created over 15 years ago, in 2009.

“At that time, it was based on the recession and everything they were dealing with,” said Walsh. “We had the recession, then we had growth, then we had a pandemic. We also had a budget crisis in 2019 — so a lot has changed in the township.”

The township hired Berry Dunn as its strategic planning consultant — in an amount not to exceed $97,300 to be paid from the American Rescue Plan Act funds — and is beginning a five-year strategic plan to lay out the priorities that officials said will guide policies and budget decisions from 2025-2029.

Trustee Stephanie Fakih, who served on the strategic planning selection committee, said the strategic plan and the master plan are often confused.

“The strategic plan is, where do you want to be? And the master plan is, how are you going to get there?” she said. “At the strategic level, we need to engage the community, because we want to know, where does the community want Bloomfield Township to be?”

Strategic plans make good business sense, according to Walsh.

“When ARPA came, we were given $4.4 million, and nobody had ever sat down to look at all the needs to see, if we had some free money coming our way, what would we spend it on? We were behind the eight ball with not having a strategic plan, so we had to do those study sessions of what kind of needs (we had), and we realized we had $53 million worth of needs, not $4 million,” she said. “When you have that much to do, you need help from the community -- of all these needs, what’s most important to you?”

The public is invited to share their thoughts by attending an in-person community forum facilitated by the township’s strategic planning consulting team.

Community forums will be held 7-8:30 p.m. June 25 at the Bloomfield Township Library; 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday, June 26, at the Bloomfield Township Senior Center; and 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 26 at the Bloomfield Township Library.

Residents, businesses and community members can attend one of the forums, where the facilitators will share a short presentation about the township and then engage participants in small group discussions.

“The community’s engagement will help identify topic areas and priorities that will guide township actions for several years to come,” Walsh said.

The Board of Trustees and township staff will use the input received from the community during their plan development sessions in August to build the strategic plan, which Walsh said should be complete by November.

Personally, Walsh feels the township needs to prioritize building the correct infrastructure to allow for equity.

“Right now, for police and fire, I’m limited in hiring females, based on the buildings — there’s no more locker rooms for females in the police area, so that creates a hiring issue. And there’s no access to a public elevator in the public area of Town Hall — same with the fire stations and the police area,” she said. “So, to me, those are obvious needs. But if the residents say, ‘Hey, that’s not important to us. We think this is important,’ then this is the way for me to learn what their priorities are so that I do go on the right path. Sometimes your gut instinct is right, and sometimes you get an adjustment, based on others.”

Updates on the strategic planning process can be found on the township website at www.BloomfieldTwp.org. For more information, call (248) 433-7700.