NEW ULM — Bolton & Menk was chosen by City Council to prepare New Ulm’s first Strategic Plan.

Their contract stipulates they will not exceed $94,956 for their work on the plan. They were chosen from a crowd of eight firms who submitted proposals arguing they should be given the contract.

“Surprisingly we got eight responses to our RFP, a lot more than I was expecting to get in,” City Manager Chris Dalton said. “They were from all over the US.”

From there, each proposal was examined by the City Manager, Engineer, and Planner, as well as the Library and Park and Rec Directors. They were then asked to score each plan. Bolton & Menk received the highest score, of 422. It is projected the Strategic Plan will take nine months to complete.

Dalton said a major area they were impressed by in Bolton & Menk’s proposal was their plan to engage the community in the development of a strategic plan.

“Working with the community through community surveys, having events, open houses, to gather feedback,” he said. “Because this is the city’s first strategic plan, we want to get feedback from the residents on what they feel the strategies or goals under [our] priorities [should be].”

Councilman Les Schultz asked about where the city’s comprehensive plan is currently and making sure that plan is done before the strategic plan. Dalton said it will be going to the planning commission after some rewrites are completed. He said both plans could co-exist because they are two different documents.

“The comprehensive plan is more a guide for how the city would be developed,” Dalton said. “Areas where development should happen, what does that development look like? The strategic plan is how the city will operate to address issues within the city. One is how you develop, [the other] is how you operate.”

Community Development Director David Schnobrich said they have a project steering committee looking to review the comprehensive plan draft next week. This would be followed by a community open house the first or second week in May.

If everything goes according to plan, the revised comprehensive plan will be in front of City Council by the first meeting in June.

Christian made the motion to award a contract to Bolton & Menk to work on developing a strategic plan for the city of New Ulm. Schultz seconded the motion.