For a long time, Don Gough wanted to be mayor of Lynnwood.

Now that he has the seat — entering his second year — Gough is practicing what he preached to get there.

One of Gough’s pet projects is transparency, the idea that it really is the public’s government and they should be able to see what’s going on and have ways to participate beyond the voting booth.

At his second and apparently going to be annual all-city staff meeting, Gough announced an outreach program aimed at Lynnwood residents. His plan is to start next month with a series of neighborhood meetings that will run through June. The effort will take a month off, then crank up again and run to the end of the year.

What happens next will involve another of Gough’s loves: carefully crafted systematic processes.

Feedback from the meetings will be compared and cross-referenced with data from a similar process involving city staff. Coming out of this sausage grinder is what Gough calls an “aligned and integrated” vision for the city’s future.

All this comes under the “Moving Forward” initiative, a concept inaugurated along with Gough in January 2006. That year’s version included a survey of 1,200 city households. “We’re going to say ‘what should the vision be for the next 20 years,’” Gough said last week.

A laudable goal, but any such effort must realize that a city is an organic, morphing entity. Perhaps the most important feature of any plan for the future is flexibility.

Lynnwood has no shortage of reasons to stay flexible: the city center project that could set the table for a Bellevue-like core; serious roads needs; a potential light-rail terminus; and a rapidly changing demographic profile.

Gough’s desire to set a vision and plan for the future is a good thing, at least the city will know what it’s changing.