Public safety and infrastructure are among the Amarillo City Council’s top priorities as members look at what they want the city to accomplish over the next five years.

Council members met Friday with city staff and a consultant for a strategic planning workshop focused on setting goals and determining how the city will measure its progress.

Public safety was a major part of the discussion. Council members outlined goals that included fully staffing the city’s police, fire and animal control departments, lowering crime, improving enforcement and strengthening leadership.

Council member Tim Reid said public safety and infrastructure are closely tied together.

“Those are probably the highest priorities and they all happen at once,” Reid said. “Our law enforcement, our fire, our ambulance can’t get to you if the infrastructure, the roads that take them there are all ripped up. So they all work together. But then we have to look at them separately because how we address their needs is a little bit different for each one of them.”

Critical infrastructure projects were also discussed, including the need for a clearer understanding between what council wants and what city staff needs as projects move forward.

Customer service and resident satisfaction were identified as other high priorities.

Council member Les Simpson said the workshop was an opportunity to determine which issues should receive the most attention and what success should ultimately look like.

“There’s a lot of things that the city deals with every day, but I think what we want to get clarity on is what are those key things that are most important? What do we want to accomplish? And how do we know when we get there? So how do we measure when we’ve been successful,” Simpson said.

Friday’s workshop covered only part of what could eventually become a broader strategic plan.

The published agenda allowed council members and staff to discuss numerous topics, including public safety, infrastructure, development, community services, parks and recreation, water resources, public works and finance. It also included council pillars, policies and procedures and current and future needs and expectations.

The agenda said officials could work toward a broad consensus on “the mission, values, priorities, expectations, milestones, funding options and opportunities for the City.”

No formal direction was taken Friday, but council members expect the discussions to eventually have an impact on city policy and operations.

“If it doesn’t, we’ve wasted our time,” Reid said. “There needs to be some change based on what we’re talking about. And whether it’s how we as council direct the city manager in what we want to see for the city, there may be policy changes that we have to make as we prioritize.”

Council provided staff and the consultant with priorities, ideas and expectations for the three main topics covered during the workshop.

Growth and quality of life were also raised as topics but were not discussed Friday.

Council members said more meetings will be held as the planning process moves forward.