The City of Watertown will have a new set of goals used to create the annual budget and make decisions about how municipal departments operate, City Manager City Manager George Proakis said during Tuesday’s State of the City presentation. During the address, he and City Council President Mark Sideris also discussed the Charter Review set to happen in 2026, and the possibility of having a Post Office in the center of town.
This is the second story on the 2025 State of the City Address. See the first story, focused on the factors that could impact Watertown’s economic future, and in turn the City’s budget, by clicking here.
New Goals
Proakis has been in town for three years, and has worked with the City Council to create the budget.
“One thing that has become very clear is that we want to be able to connect goals and outcomes throughout the organization, and we want to be able to connect budget goals throughout the organization,” Proakis said. “For many years past, my predecessor had some steps in the budget that connected budget goals to department goals. We looked very carefully at that process. We kind of slid away from it for a while.”
Proakis said he wants to create a budget using best practices, and also one that is easier for
“the community to understand not just how much money you put in the line item, but why it’s there, what it’s trying to achieve, and how it connects back to things.”
Proakis added: “We want to set a series of high level goals that direct the City’s administration staff are delivering effective services to our constituents, And then we’re going to work to build objectives around programs and services that meet the needs of the constituency of the community each and every day,” he said. “What had happened up until this point is, over the course of the last three years, we were working with three separate pools of information to be able to sort some of that.”
The three pools were Watertown’s City Charter preamble, and two documents that Proakis created during his first budget year, the preliminary budget overview in October of 2022. Those are the Strategic Priorities, and the Leadership Formula.
The Strategic Priorities are:
● Climate Mitigation and Resiliency
● A Commitment to Planning
● Enhanced Organizational Effectiveness
● Building for the Future
The Leadership Formula includes:
● Maintain the highest ethical standards
● Ensure collaborative departments
● Provide accurate, courteous, and easy customer service
● Transparency in process and outcomes
● Be abnormal – find new and unique solutions to the challenges of leading in local government
On Tuesday, he presented his new set of goals, and priorities.
“What we wanted to do is to take these three sets of things and really bring to one set of things that we could build, think and coordinate our efforts on,” Proakis said.
He added: “The staff’s been working on this for a bit. The Council President has had a chance to see it and work with us on it for a bit. And, I’m happy to be able to use this new set of goals, first of all, to introduce them as a strategy for organizing.”
The goals fall under two categories: Excellent, Responsive, and Collaborative Municipal Operations; and Vibrant and Welcoming Community.
Under the Excellent, Responsive and Collaborative Municipal Operations, sits Effective Operations, Fiscal Stability, and Community Engagement and Customer Service.
Under Vibrant and Welcoming Community are: Public Health and Safety, Commitment to the Future, and A Watertown for All.
The new goals will be used when the Fiscal Year 2027 budget process starts this year. Proakis will present the Preliminary FY27 Budget at the Oct. 14 City Council Meeting.
See more details about the goals in the State of the City presentation slideshow – Click here.
Charter Review
During the State of the City, Proakis and Sideris discussed some of the changes that have been implemented from the 2021 City Charter Review, and discussed the upcoming 2026 Charter Review.
Among the items achieved from the 2021 Charter update are creating the State of the City address, hosting City Council annual meetings, establishing the Human Rights Commission, establishing the Residents Advisory Committee to help the manager find candidates for city boards and commissions, hiring both a Community Engagement Specialist and a City Council Analyst, and conduct an evaluation of the City Manager.
Charter reviews typically take place every 10 years. The changes made to the Charter in 2021 were substantial, Sideris said, and the Charter Review Committee added a recommendation to hold the next Charter Review just five years later, in 2026, to see how well the changes worked.
The make up of the Charter Review Committee will be different, Sideris said. In past years, the Committee had 15 members, including the nine members of the City Council. In 2026, the Committee will include nine residents, and no more than three City Councilors.
“Sometime in November, we will create a place where people can apply to be on the Charter Commission, and I will personally interview everybody that applies,” Sideris said. “I will make recommendations to the City Council to form that committee, and residents will be notified that way. The committee will meet regularly to review the Charter and develop a report recommending any changes in the Charter which may be deemed necessary or desirable.”
If the committee recommends any changes, the Council will have to vote to put them on a ballot for the community to vote on, Sideris said. The next Charter review after that would be 10 years later.
Post Office
Among the questions fielded by Proakis and Sideris after the formal presentation was whether the U.S. Post Office would be returning to Watertown Square.
Proakis said that while recently the Post Office has looked for ways to consolidate and reduce the number of Post Offices, he has not seen many communities that do not have a downtown Post Office.
The City staff has been discussing possible places for a Postal Office, Proakis said.
“We’ve talked a bit about, as a starting point, asking the Post Office about returning to the building across the street (from City Hall), where the Post Office was before,” he said. “And I’ll just note that I don’t want to give up on that idea.”
That is not the only location where a Post Office could go near the center of Watertown. Sideris said the new development expected in the Watertown Square area could provide new possibilities.
“I also think that the revitalization of the Square gives us a potential of other opportunities, and we’ll have to go to Congresswoman Clark’s office and others to try to get the United States Postal Service back in the Square,” Sideris said. “So we will continue to try. That’s all we can do. I think that’s the message that we’ll be sending.”
Watch the Watertown Cable broadcast of the State of the City by clicking here.