(ST. JOSEPH, Mo) St. Joseph’s city council was hard at work Saturday, in an effort to address the city’s ongoing issue with blighted properties.

one of the key points of the meeting was how the city plans to move forward and find solutions to its' challenges.

"Today’s a very important step for our city council," Bruce Woody, city manager, said. "Its a time that they identify and eventually get down on paper what they’re chief priorities and goals are."

The idea was to help the city council focus on taking on complex issues.

"Some of the policy issues that this council has established as priorities are long term visions that will need to be addressed on a day-to-day basis." Clint Thompson, Director of planning and community development, said. 

One of those issues, is the high number of abandoned properties around town. While city leaders say they’ve worked to address the problem, they admit it's a struggle.

"It's clearly one of the council’s highest priorities, and they’ve already been taking some action steps on those," Woody said. "Those action steps reinforce the fact that it is a difficult challenge."

The facilitator of the meeting called the issue of blighted homes an “adaptive challenge” meaning there’s is no simple solution or one size fits all approach.

"Over a period of time what we measure is the progress we’ve made." Bill McMurray, St. Joseph Mayor. 

City leaders say, in the future they want to be able to look back on what’s been done so the city can get on the right path.

"There is no easy fix for some of the problems we face in the community," McMurray said. "but, there certainly is the ability to get together row in the same direction and that’s what this is about today."