Traverse City commissioners and City Manager Marty Colburn discussed city project priorities for the coming years Monday - with parks, housing and sidewalks topping the board's list.

Commissioners filled out a survey given to them by Colburn to help create a two-year strategic plan to guide city staff in planning decisions. Colburn asked commissioners to identify their biggest areas of focus among six categories, then to rank subsets of priorities in each category.

Commissioners ranked categories from highest to lowest priority as follows: Environment, Health/Welfare, Infrastructure, Public Safety, Community Development and Economic Development. Under Environment, commissioners picked parks, stormwater and trees as some of their top project priorities; under Health/Welfare, high-ranking priorities included housing, emergency housing and property maintenance. Several commissioners expressed surprise that under Infrastructure, parking decks/parking were ranked last among project priorities, with sidewalks, streets, bridges all ranking higher. However, Colburn explained that all of the infrastructure options help address traffic management issues, which in turn impact parking, and that some commissioners expressed the belief the city was already working to address parking and so focused their attention on other, more neglected areas of infrastructure development.

The board's feedback will be used to "formulate the concepts that are built into the budget over the next couple years," according to Colburn.

Commissioners Monday also approved hiring consultant Mary Grover to help lead commission evaluations of Colburn and City Attorney Lauren Trible-Laucht this year. Grover uses a system in which she interviews each commissioner and some members of city staff individually about the performance of the city manager and attorney, then compiles all the feedback into one summary without attributing specific comments to individuals. Evaluations will take place in early summer once the city budget has been finalized, commissioners agreed.