In Summer 2002, the Rockwall City Council and City Staff held a two-day strategic planning retreat. The strategic planning retreat resulted in agreement on a new draft of the City’s mission statement, a restatement of the organization’s core values, an enumeration of the vision of the City in 2022, and seven focus areas to guide the staff in implementation of the City’s strategic agenda. A new framework for translating the City’s strategy into measurable action, called the Balanced Scorecard, was also presented by the staff at the retreat. These elements were formally adopted by the City Council at the June 3, 2002 meeting.

A common thread throughout the retreat carried over from previous strategic planning efforts of the City,”Rockwall is a progressive City with a “hometown” atmosphere.” The concept of Rockwall as a “hometown” city has been stated as an important element of the City’s strategic planning for at least the last ten years and was recently further employed in the development of the City’s new comprehensive land use plan which was appropriately named the “Hometown 2000” plan.

The City’s mission statement outlines the purpose of the local government in Rockwall:

"The purpose of the government of the City of Rockwall is to provide responsible leadership and the services and infrastructure necessary for a safe environment and a high quality of life for our citizens"