HomeMy WebLinkAboutInformation Only 092623AGENDA
INFORMATION UPDATE
September 26, 2023
5:00 PM,
I.Information Update
I.A North Star Program Overview
I.B Aspen Community Broadband
Info Memo (North Star Program Overview).pdf
Info Only Memo Attachment A (Asana Screenshot).pdf
Council Memo - Aspen Community Broadband.docx
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INFORMATION ONLY MEMORANDUM
TO: Aspen City Council
FROM: Patrick Quick, Strategy & Innovation Director
THROUGH: Alissa Farrell, Administrative Services Director
MEMO DATE: September 19, 2023
MEETING DATE: September 26, 2023
RE: North Star Program Overview (Citywide Strategy Program)
PURPOSE: No formal Council action is requested at this time. This memo is to provide an
overview of the North Star program, the city’s internal strategy program, developed and
administered by the Strategy & Innovation Office (SIO) within the department of the City
Manager. In the upcoming annual, departmental presentations of the FY2024 budget to City
Council, many concepts and practices from this program will be discussed. Contextual
information about the North Star program will prove useful to inform budget deliberations,
which begin on October 2, 2023.
SUMMARY:
The Strategy & Innovation Office partners with all departments to ensure their goals, priority
projects, primary systems, and cross-functional processes are moving forward in alignment
with the city’s mission, values, and Strategic Focus Areas consistent with Council Goals.
The mission of the Strategy & Innovation Office is to provide collaborative consulting
services, champion a culture of continuous improvement and high performance, promote
strategic alignment, foster best practices in organizational excellence, and encourage
employees to embrace change and innovation.
To execute these efforts, the SIO has developed the North Star program, a framework
which standardizes the city’s approach to organizational planning for the future, tracks
strategic projects, identifies cross-functional processes, and facilitates innovation. The
SIO developed this program in 2022 with the objective to align departmental efforts under
the city’s Strategic Focus Areas, Council Goals, organizational values, and mission.
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The North Star program will continue to scale over time and, in the future, will incorporate
outcome measure data for analysis and decision-making. The SIO plans to develop ways
to showcase the city’s strategic direction, including our goals, measured outcomes, and
cross-functional activities, to better communicate our efforts to the public, celebrate the city’s
accomplishments alongside the community, and simultaneously promote transparency in
local government. When organizations implement best practices in strategy and innovation
management, they are more likely to achieve community outcomes with greater efficiency,
effectiveness, and impact.
The Strategy & Innovation Office consults directly with departments every quarter to
develop, refine, and adapt their work plans, which SIO has branded as Compass Plans
(Compass), playing off the city’s forward-looking, navigational theme of the North Star
program. Each Compass acts as a guide for multi-year planning, to manage a priority project
pipeline, and to use as a communication tool for departments to tell their story as it relates
to their annual budgets, resource requirements, and community expectations. The SIO
facilitates internal strategy sessions between departments and the Agency Director Team
(ADT) to track progress and provide direction to department heads. All Compass Plans
include strategic goals, priority projects, and milestones, which are all managed within
Asana, a centralized strategy software, used to strengthen cross-functional collaboration
between departments, and to give leadership the ability to gauge progress of milestones
and action items. Nearly three hundred strategic projects across every city department are
currently managed inside Asana, which allows staff to access and update projects in real
time. Asana has been instrumental in allowing departments to manage their goals and
milestones, while streamlining communication, and improving collaboration and
accountability.
NEXT STEPS: In October, city departments will present their FY2024 budgets to City
Council in conjunction with highlights of their Compass priorities over the next year. Each
Compass represents the vision of the department, but Compass Plans, in their entirety,
will not be presented due to time constraints. Departments will present their Compass to
tell their story by highlighting their strategic goals, project activity, resource
requirements, and budget information all in one presentation.
ATTACHMENTS: Attachment A (Asana Screenshot)
CITY MANAGER NOTES:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
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INFORMATION ONLY MEMORANDUM
TO:Aspen City Council
FROM:John Sobieralski, IT Director
THROUGH:Alissa Farrell, Administrative Services Director
MEMO DATE:September 21, 2026
MEETING DATE:September 26, 2023
PURPOSE: Status update: Aspen Community Broadband Projects
SUMMARY:This is an update for Council about the Aspen Community Broadband (ACB)
internet service program and the current projects that the program participates in as part of
Project THOR, the regional middle-mile fiber optic network managed by the Northwest
Colorado Council of Governments (NWCCOG).
BACKGROUND:
Northwest Colorado Regional Broadband
Project THOR is a 481-mile, carrier-class, open-access fiber network servicing
Northwest Colorado communities. The THOR project began in 2018 and became fully
operational in April 2020. The network is engineered for resiliency, economies of scale,
and delivering community benefit. The two diverse fiber paths from Aspen to Denver
deliver resiliency during network outages at other carrier networks.
Aspen Community Broadband
After City voters opted out of the Colorado law prohibiting public entities from running
broadband networks in 2016, Council approved creating the Aspen Meet-Me Center
and joining Project THOR as Aspen Community Broadband in May 2018. A Meet-Me
Center is a facility that connects a regional middle-mile network, such as THOR, to a
local broadband service provider, such as ACB. The Aspen Meet-Me Center has been
operational since February 2019. ACB has been delivering higher quality, more cost-
effective fiber optic broadband services to community anchor institutions, including
Pitkin County, Grassroots and Aspen Public Radio, other City departments, and three
other local Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
The Aspen Meet-Me Center is co-located in the Armory datacenter along with core City
network equipment. The City IT department manages the ACB program and charges
customers a service fee approved by Council in 2019. These fees pay the ACB costs for
carrier services from Project THOR as well as the direct internet service used by many
ACB customers.
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Roaring Fork Broadband (RFB) Project
Starting in 2021, Holy Cross Energy (HCE) began building a fiber network up the
Roaring Fork Valley between their facilities in Glenwood Springs and Aspen. A
partnership led by Pitkin County submitted a DOLA grant application that seeks 50%
matching funds to improve broadband in the Roaring Fork Valley by leasing HCE fiber
to create a new path for Project THOR and ACB. The DOLA grant was approved.
Aspen City Council approved Aspen’s portion of the project’s costs, which includes
equipment, construction, and fiber leasing.
Roaring Fork Broadband (RFB) partners include Pitkin County, City of Aspen, Town of
Snowmass Village, Town of Basalt, Glenwood Springs, DOLA, NWCCOG Project
THOR, and Holy Cross Energy. Construction of the Holy Cross Energy path was
completed early this summer, followed by Aspen’s installation of new fiber at the Aspen
Airport Business Center to connect ACB to HCE.
NEXT STEPS: Although there are several remaining phases to fully complete the RFB
project the City’s final part of the construction is to install fiber cable at Cozy Point Ranch
and connect it back to ACB through the HCE path. IT’s fiber contractor has completed the
engineering for this and is awaiting permit approval from Pitkin County. The Cozy Point
connection is anticipated to be completed in 2023.
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