Letter of Appointment
April16,2024
DearPresidentBasandmembersoftheCityCouncil:
PursuanttoCityCharterSection601,theMayorhasappointedthefollowingpersonsasmembersofthefollowingboardorcommission,subjecttoCityCouncilconfirmation:
Bicyclist&PedestrianAdvisoryCommission
PriyankaAltman,toserveathree-yeartermontheBicyclistandPedestrianAdvisoryCommissionbeginningJanuary1,2024andendingDecember31,2026,tofilltheseatvacatedbyEnjoleahDaye.
Thankyouforyourassistanceinthismatter.
Sincerely,
MayorShengThao
Submit Date: Sep 14, 2023
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City of Oakland Boards & Commissions
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What City Council district do you live in?
District 3
Which Boards would you like to apply for?
Bicyclist & Pedestrian Advisory Commission: Submitted
Interests & Experiences
Priyanka B Altman
Oakland CA 94612
SpotOn Lead Software Engineer
Priyanka B Altman
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Please tell us how your qualifications and participation will relate to the requested board and/or commission's mission.
I would be a strong addition to the Bicyclist & Pedestrian Advisory Commission because I live car-free in Oakland, and I care deeply about making Oakland a safer and more enjoyable place for cyclists and pedestrians to move around. I love this town, and strongly believe a move towards less car-centric infrastructure would improve the health, safety, and well- being of our citizens, as well as be a great step towards us as a community fighting climate change.
I first moved to Oakland in the fall of 2018; I spent 2019 living in San Francisco before returning to Oakland in early 2020. Living in a walkable place where a car is unnecessary is one of my main criteria in choosing a home (I have never owned a car in the Bay Area). In March of 2022, I took SF Bike Coalition's Adult Learn-to-Ride course and began biking around Oakland. Since then, biking has replaced walking and running as my main mode of transit, and I have also started cycling for sport, with my first triathlon coming up next month.
As a relatively new cyclist, I was initially particularly nervous about urban biking alongside cars. My comfort level has grown as I've biked more and become more nimble, but regular news of cyclist and pedestrian fatalities (I am particularly heartbroken by Maia Correia’s death last month) reminds me that there is so much more we can be doing as a town to protect our citizens. As such, this year it has become increasingly important to me to get more actively involved in making the changes I want to see. To this end, I started volunteering with Bike East Bay in May, and have enjoyed learning more about what it takes to make better infrastructure a reality from an advocacy perspective, connecting to like- minded community members, and contributing however I can, whether that’s distributing fliers for fundraising events to bike shops around Oakland, calling monthly donors, or administrative work. I’m excited by the upcoming improvements to San Pablo, and the projects in development for MLK and Grand, which I learned more about at the BPAC’s Infrastructure Committee meeting last week.
Last month, I also volunteered for Cycles of
Change’s Lake Merritt-thon, a fundraising ride to support their work in bike education for East Oakland youth. This was an incredibly inspiring experience, and it was deeply satisfying to help and befriend people doing such needed work. The event emphasized the theme of bikes being both an agent of joy and of economic empowerment. If selected to serve on the BPAC, I would keep this idea central, as I believe it encompasses the diverse range of populations Oakland’s infrastructure serves. I am privileged enough to mostly see movement as a source of joy: it is a way to meet friends, to replenish endorphins, to celebrate my body’s abilities. However, many in Oakland bike or walk because these are their only accessible modes of transportation by which they can earn a livelihood and fulfill their basic needs. This group is disproportionately composed of people of color, people with disabilities who cannot drive, and low-income communities. These folks deserve better, safer options, and I want to do my part to help make those options a reality.
Please submit your resume or curriculum vitae. You may upload a document. (A Word format is preferred.) Alternatively, you may paste the text of your resume in the field provided below.
Please paste the text of your resume or curriculum vitae below.
Priyanka_Altman_Resume_Sept_2023_BPAC.pdf
Priyanka B Altman
Please click the acknowledgement below.
Service on City of Oakland boards, commissions, and committees may require filings of the FPPC's Statements of Economic Interest (Form 700). Upon appointment and determination of filing status, I will comply with all filing obligations.
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Priyanka B Altman
PRIYANKA ALTMAN
Software Engineer
WORK EXPERIENCE
SpotOn, San Francisco, CA
Lead Software Engineer January 2019 - present
● Train and mentor junior and mid-level engineers, providing both technical guidance and career support ● Architect solutions for large tasks using LucidChart, write and delegate JIRA issues based on those designs ● Moved resource-heavy scheduled tasks collecting the bulk of the business’s revenue from Amazon EC2 Classic to Kubernetes
● Built a new service in K8s to isolate critical billing code and integrate with Netsuite and Salesforce ● Developed features to optimize and automate repetitive processes ● Created a Postgres reporting layer from Mongo data models to provide performant and accurate revenue reporting and analytics for large sets of transactional data
EDUCATION
Peralta Community College Network, Oakland, CA January 2023 - present Undergraduate psychology coursework in preparation for a career change to working as a therapist:
- Psychology 21: Human Lifespan Development
- Psychology 6: Social Psychology
- Counseling 57: Career and Life Planning
Hackbright Academy, Oakland, CA December 2018
12-week Software Engineering Program for Women
Learned computer science fundamentals and independently built a Flask web-app, Keyboard Diaries:
● Rendered iPhone texts in an easily searchable format, with data analysis of patterns and trends ● Extracted text data from original SQLite databases and created simplified schemas in PostgreSQL Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH June 2018
Bachelor of Arts: Music Major, Chemistry Minor, Complete Pre-Medical Track | GPA: 3.56/4.00 Research / Work Experience:
● Two summer internships running experiments in chemistry labs at Akzo Nobel (paint company, 2017) and Biodel (Type II diabetes research, 2015)
● V arious part-time roles: Stage Manager at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, Music Dept. TA, Cashier, Retail Associate, and more
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Oakland Civic Orchestra - Violinist September 2021 - present ● Assistant concertmaster in local orchestra performing free concerts for the community Bike East Bay - Volunteer May 2023 - present
● Act as bike courier to share communications with local bike shops, call monthly donors, administrative work St Vincent De Paul of Alameda County - Volunteer December 2022 - present ● V olunteer at local homeless shelter, helping route clients to needed services like showers, laundry, and meals, and sorting clothing donations
Running for a Better Oakland - Mentor September 2022 - January 2023 ● Mentor in program that empowers youth to run, fostering community while teaching discipline and structure Hackbright Academy, San Francisco, CA - Mentor July 2019 - January 2020 ● Mentored a student in coding bootcamp for career-changing women of which I am an alumnus, providing moral support and technical guidance during 12 week education program and subsequent job search
APPROVED AS TO FORM AND LEGALITY
________________________
CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL
RESOLUTION NO. _____________ C.M.S.
INTRODUCED BY MAYOR SHENG THAO
RESOLUTION CONFIRMING THE MAYOR’S APPOINTMENT OF
PRIYANKA ALTMAN AS A MEMBER OF THE BICYCLIST AND
PEDESTRIAN ADVISORY COMMISSION
WHEREAS, Section 601 of the City Charter provides that members of City boards and commissions shall be appointed by the Mayor subject to confirmation by the affirmative vote of five members of the City Council; and
WHEREAS, Ordinance No. 13215 C.M.S., adopted February 4, 2014, created the Oakland Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission to advise City Council and staff on bicyclist - and pedestrian- specific policies, projects, and programs, and on the accommodation of bicyclists and pedestrians in all transportation plans, policies, projects and programs, and to provide annual reports to the Public Works Committee of the City Council, to summarize the Commission's work over the course of the year, and to identify key policy issues affecting the safety of and access for bicyclists and pedestrians in Oakland; and
WHEREAS, the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission consists of nine members serving three-year staggered terms with no more than six consecutive years of ser vice by any Commissioner; and
WHEREAS, the Honorable Mayor Sheng Thao appoints Priyanka Altman to serve on the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission subject to confirmation by the City Council; now therefore be it
2 3319647v1
RESOLVED: That pursuant to City Charter section 601, the City Council hereby confirms the Mayor’s appointment of:
Priyanka Altman, to serve a three-year term on the Bicyclist and Pedestrian Advisory Commission beginning January 1, 2024 and ending December 31, 2026, to fill the seat vacated by Enjoleah Daye.
IN COUNCIL, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA,
PASSED BY THE FOLLOWING VOTE:
AYES - FIFE, GALLO, JENKINS, KALB, KAPLAN, RAMACHANDRAN, REID, AND
PRESIDENT FORTUNATO BAS
NOES –
ABSENT –
ABSTENTION –
ATTEST:
ASHA REED
City Clerk and Clerk of the Council of the
City of Oakland, California