Friday, in the central room at the House of Hope in Albert Lea the Albert Lea city council sat, clad in informal clothing, discussing their visions for the future of the city .

The council spent from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. hammering out their priorities for the next two years at the first ever retreat for an Albert Lea city council.

Bill Mease, the consultant and facilitator who was hired for the retreat, said that the day served three purposes: to build a stronger idea of team identity through communication, to make a list of priorities for the city, and to formulate some standard for how to measure the successes and failures of the city council and its projects.

&uot;It’s easy to make global plans,&uot; he said. &uot;With lake clean up for instance, you can say ‘we should clean up the lake’ but there are many different interpretations of what cleaning up the lake actually is.&uot;

Mease said point for the group is to set some measurable and detailed goals, so that they can look back in a certain amount of time and see if those things have come to fruition.

Throughout the day, the councilors, mayor and city manager had split up into pairs to discuss outlines for addressing issues, such as economic development, starting a town celebration, privatizing some government services and becoming a more ‘customer friendly’ city.

They would then come back as a group to discuss the issues.

By the end of the day the council seemed to have a bounce in their step and talked as if they’d just come back from a vacation together.

Councilors said it was a time to get an stronger sense about where the city is headed, to find out what their peers really feel about issues, and to get a better grasp on things they didn’t have a complete understanding of before.

&uot;If I had questions on something, we talked about it,&uot; councilor Al ‘Minnow’ Brooks said. &uot;We don’t always get time to go far into depth on everything in our regular meetings. This was a good opportunity to discuss city issues and really find out what everyone’s opinion on things were.&uot;

Brooks added that the council learned how to focus in on projects and set up agendas to finish them.

All councilors, Mayor Jean Eaton and City Manager Paul Sparks spoke well of the retreat.

&uot;We got a lot of good ideas out here,&uot; councilman Jeff Fjelstad said. &uot;It was nice to meet and really figure things out in an informal setting.&uot;

While there has been some pulic and council scrutiny questioning the $3,000 cost to hire Mease during a budget crunch. Most felt it was money well spent.

&uot;I questioned whether or not it was worth $3,000,&uot; Brooks said. &uot;But when it came down to it we really achieved something. We have a much more focused idea of where the council is going and how we can plan and stay on those plans. I think it was beneficial.&uot;