FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The Strategic Planning Steering Committee met Thursday to finalize a list of factors to be used with city department heads in analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing those departments as part of a strategic planning process which that committee is facilitating.

“We’re proceeding at a pretty good pace,” said John Gutknecht, the committee’s chairman, referring to the progress of the strategic planning process.

The committee’s work got off to a slow start last fall when the council delayed appointing a full committee. Two citizen members also resigned from the committee, leaving one position still unfilled. During a recent meeting, committee member and Councilman Lonnie Mixon said the committee was functioning well with the number it had, and he did not think the vacancy needed to be filled.

The committee presented a model for strategic planning at a Jan. 9 meeting of most city department heads, which set out the process as follows:

• Define the mission statement.

• Conduct a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis.

• Define goals and strategies and objectives to meet those goals.

• Consolidate action plans from each city department.

• Establish priorities and a formulate a draft strategic plan.

• Gather public input through public meetings.

• Draft a final plan to include an implementation schedule.

Gutknecht said Thursday that committee members, who were assigned to various city departments, had been assisting those departments in developing or refining mission statements during the past few weeks.

During the next meeting on Feb. 9, the committee will gather and review current mission statement of all city departments, he said.

The next stage of the process will involve committee members helping the departments do a SWOT analysis. Gutknecht provided the committee with a form to use during the SWOT analysis process.

The committee decided to develop criteria for weighing the priority issues within each department, as identified during the SWOT analysis.

“We will then at least have a comprehensive list of the city’s needs, information about what it’s going to take to fix them and what it’s going to cost,” Gutknecht said. “Then the council can look at them and make some decisions.”

Gutknecht said this process would provide a better way for the city to handle issues than the way it had been done in the past.

“The first thing that pops up and makes the most noise gets the attention is how it seems to have gone in the past.”

During the meeting, several members spoke up about urgent issues facing the departments they were working with. Ron Heveran discussed the public works department’s need for a new landfill, and Marvin Wilder noted the golf course had plans to shut the course down for three months to repair putting greens.

Mayor Tim Kant said later on Thursday that the issue of repairs to the greens would be brought before the council at its next meeting on Feb. 12.

”We will be looking for their guidance,” he said, noting that several options were being explored by the golf course staff, and that a report was being prepared, which might include closing only nine holes at a time.

Committee member Diane Thomas was assigned the job of developing the criteria for weighing the priority issues.

Members attending the meeting included Gutknecht, Thomas, Pam Caudill, Ron Heveran and Marvin Wilder. Committee members Kant and Mixon were absent.