It was a relieved group of city officials and planners who gathered at Memorial Hall Thursday evening with more than 20 residents unconnected with city government to help the city plan for its future.

The turnout of nine city officials and employees and 25 residents was much better than the last time the city tried to hold this meeting on April 4 when 12 city officials and employees and only two residents attended.

"That was a lot better than the last time," Short said. "You can see from what they discussed that they had a lot of opinions and we got a lot broader picture of residents priorities than we would have gotten earlier this month."

Sara Copeland, planner with Our Planning Works Inc., the company from Leewood, Kan., that the city hired to help update the city's 14-year-old comprehensive plan for growth and development, led the two-hour meeting.

Participants spent most of the meeting prioritizing a list of 86 strategies developed by the city and the planners.

Planners also asked participants to add any strategies not included on the list or cross out any strategies on the list they felt didn't apply to Carthage.

The residents prioritized the list into strategies that should be pursued immediately, ones that could wait one to five years, ones that could wait five-10 years and strategies that could wait more than 10 years.

Among the top priorities listed by residents were adopt a unified development code including subdivisions, zoning, floodplain and other relevant ordinances to bring the code to consistency with the comprehensive plan; acquire or annex land for economic development; develop a system to rank capital improvements; and controlling or minimizing odors from Renewable Environmental Systems.

Kelton Bass, Carthage, said he was glad he participated in the meeting. He said one of his priorities was to get the city, the hospital, the fire department, the police department and other city, county and state agencies communicating better and operating from the same page.

Ed Reynolds, Carthage, said he wasn't sure if the meeting was the best way to reach citizens, but it was probably the best means available.

"I got bored after going through the number two priority list," Reynolds said. "There are a lot of different ways to communicate, but in general, getting the input from citizens is important."

Copeland said her next goal was to have a draft of the comprehensive plan available for public inspection by middle to late May.