Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The Board of Lucas County Commissioners, comprised of Lisa Sobecki, Pete Gerken and Anita Lopez, voted to adopt a strategic plan on June 24 that will “guide future decision-making with a unified vision to provide high-quality services to Lucas County residents.”
“What this does is it helps the residents see how Lucas County is really working for them,” Sobecki said. “And the needs of which, through focus groups and touch points, that people really wanted to see the direction of Lucas County (go in). This gave us a great opportunity to do that.”
The plan, which will guide the county’s vision for the next five years, was completed with the help of consulting firm Experience Management Institute. It incorporated interviews and written feedback from residents, elected officials, Lucas County employees, businesses, unions, community partners, and other stakeholders across the county.
“This is a great way to be able to take everyone's input and compile it all kind of in one document,” Sobecki said.
To compile information for the plan, the board received 248 staff survey responses, 434 community survey responses, held 52 individual interviews with community leaders, led five department staff advisory meetings, and conducted 16 stakeholder focus groups.
It is the first time the county has compiled a strategic plan, which took a little under two years to complete. The project was spearheaded by Sobecki.
“When I was running for this position, this was something that I felt very strongly about coming in,” Sobecki said. “I've done this in my previous elected capacity when I was on the Toledo Public School Board. Actually, we did a performance audit and a strategic plan, so when I was looking into running for county commissioner, I saw that the county did not have one. And I was like, why? Why don't we have one?”
The plan features: operational goals and advocacy areas, along with mission, vision and value statements.
The operational goals, which outline day-to-day work that will help improve the operations of the board, includes six parts — enhancing service delivery and accessibility, modernizing and optimizing county operations and processes, engaging communities through collaboration, establishing Lucas County as a premier employer, responsibly managing and maintaining county finances, and strengthening board governance and procedural efficiency.
Advocacy areas include the board’s stance on critical issues requiring action beyond internal operations, often at local, state, or national levels to drive systemic change aligned with community values.
Sobecki said the flexibility of the plan is one of its biggest assets.
“I think the long-term significance is that we'll be referring to this document for the next five years, but also understanding that after rolling this out, the state has just passed their state operating budget and since then, on July 4, the federal government passed their ‘big, beautiful bill.’
“We’re an extension of the state or sometimes an extension of the state through the federal government, so when they change their direction, then we have to pivot sometimes, and that flexibility, I believe, is put into our strategic plan.”
Sobecki wants to emphasize that this plan is for all of Lucas County, not just the city of Toledo.
“I have to hear, ‘Oh, you guys are just dealing with Toledo needs.’ Well, not necessarily. I think of economic development, and I think of services that we provide (such as) water quality,” she said. “We don't just service Toledo. We service the whole entire county.
“If you think about water quality, the western part of Lucas County is a big piece of that. and looking at our wastewater treatment plant there and what do we have to do to prepare for that growth out in the western part of the county, which has nothing to do with the city of Toledo. Or how we do our trash pickup out there, our bulk pickup, has nothing to do with the city of Toledo.
“Sometimes people don’t understand that, so this is a great way that we can continue to showcase that we work in Lucas County as county commissioners for all the residents within Lucas County — all 425,000 people.
The strategic plan can be accessed at co.lucas.oh.us/3733/Strategic-Plan-2025-2030, where updates on progress will be reported over time. Residents are encouraged to check back and follow along as the plan is implemented.
