Implementation Team Representatives
Monica Davis, Deputy City Administrator
Candice Parker-Trigg, City Administrator Analyst
City Administrator’s Office
Visraant Iyer, Director
Patricia Merino Price, Sr. Civic Designer
Mayor’s Office of Innovation
Citywide Strategic Plan
6 Month Update
January 27, 2026
Attachment A
GROUNDING
Steering Committee
• Tony Batalla, Director of Information Technology
• Ashleigh Kanat, Director of Economic and Workforce Development • Sean Maher, Director of Communications
• Andrea Mariano, Human Resources Manager
• Bradley Johnson, Director of Finance
• Jamie Turbak, Director of Library
• Department of Race and Equity (Consultant)
1. STREAMLINE OPERATIONS
Tara Dubal Management
Assistant PBD
Sarah Herbelin Assistant
Director OPRYD
Nina Lindsay Associate
Director OPL
Gaspar
Montoya Admin Analyst II EWD
Michelle NewRingeisen
Information
Systems
Manager II
ITD
Caleb
Smith Program Analyst
III HCD
Tanisha
Tucker Captain Training
Division OFD
2. FOSTER CROSS-DEPARTMENT COLLABORATION
Robin Abad Project Manager III CAO
Keary Brink Park Supervisor II OPW
Carina Lieu City Admin Analyst CAO
Sofia Navarro Deputy City
Administrator CAO
Chris Norman Chief of Staff HCD
Anthony Tedesco /
Steve Toribio
Deputy Chief /
Captain of Police OPD
Alethia Walker Recreation
Supervisor OPRYD
3. ENHANCE COMMUNICATION & COORDINATION
Barbara DeSalvo Volunteer Prog.
Specialist II OPD
Liam Garland Director OPW
Monica Pelayo-Lock PIO II Police
Commission
4. OPTIMIZE WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT
Jenera Burton Supervising Librarian OPL
Juliet Huang Assistant To the
Director DWES
Andrea Mariano Human Resource
Manager
HRM
Jasmine Pomar Program Analyst III DOT
Paul Priaulx Management Assist EWD
5. ALIGN BUDGET WITH CITYWIDE PRIORITIES
Shayna Hirshfield-GoldProgram Analyst III CAO
Tiffany Kirkpatrick Budget Analyst Finance
Demond Simmons Deputy Chief Support
Services OFD
Mailee Wang Deputy Chief of
Administration DVP
Megan Wier Assistant Director DOT
Implementation Team
Connections!
TEAM UPDATES
(INFORM)
Implementation Team Representatives
Team 1: Streamline Operations: Nina Lindsay & Tara Dubal Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Keary Brink Team 3: Enhance Communications & Coordination: Liam Garland & Monica Pelayo-Lock Team 4: Optimize Workforce Management: Andrea Mariano
Team 5: Align Budget and Citywide Priorities: Mailee Wang & Megan Wier
Team 1: Streamline Operations
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
OVERALL
• Began work on targeted projects.
• Determined that splitting projects was
required to ensure progress.
• Continued focus on Procurement
practices as first priority.
1 Simplify
Procurement
Contracting
Processes
Create process, timeline, and begin to implement
Priority 1 recommendations from Baker Tilly report.
Evaluate and improve efficiency on the contracting
process, payment schedule, and timelines.
• Initial and follow up meeting with
Contracts Manager. Meeting included list
of needs to advance their work.
• Began review of Baker Tilly
("audit") recommendations..
• Team brainstorming on potential projects
to work alongside current efforts.
• Received status of Baker Tilly
recommendation implementation to date
and recommendations from Contracts
• Met with Risk about insurance
requirements and reviewed the process.
• Working on meeting request to DWES
• Oriented new task force members
• Define complimentary areas of work
with Contracts Team & frame
priorities. (still pending copy of Baker
Tiller progress report)
• Suggesting project to clearly define
process from start to finish for all
contract types (i.e.. flowchart) along
with SLAs to help focus on internal
customer service.
• Meet with DWES
• Risk is interested in meeting again to
get into more detail regarding
potential roadblocks and identifying
solutions.
• Meet with Finance Director on
priorities associated with Baker Tilly
report (team is working on surfacing
major roadblocks, and outlining
related recommendations not in the
Baker Tilly report)
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Team 1: Streamline Operations
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
2 Strengthen
Hiring Practice
Transparency
Continue to regularly meet with departments to review their hiring priorities and provide timelines to achieve filling their vacancies. Human Resources to promote and encourage
departments to consistently utilize and reconcile the
monthly Position Control Report to provide a transparent view of all vacant and frozen positions, across all levels of City departments.
Develop resources to communicate available career
pathways to enable employees to explore promotional
opportunities across departments.
• Project Coordinator (Vis) has
requesting Meeting with HR.
• Understand who we need to
coordinate with on this process.
3 Standardize
Onboarding
Administer and review New Hire Experience Survey and use survey feedback to ensure the Citywide New Employee
Orientation provides new employees with required and
useful information. New Hire Experience Survey will be re- implemented in January 2025 after NEO and feedback will be shared with the Recruitment & Classification Division and HR SPOCS on a quarterly basis.
Each City department will consult with Human Resources
Management to formalize, expand, and promote its
departmental onboarding program. Standardization of the onboarding process will improve the new employee
experience, focusing on staff-identified priorities, including the employee’s role in achieving the department’s mission, workload management, and training on the use of resources and tools to perform their duties.
HRM will leverage the automation and technology of
NEOGOV Onboard to create consistent processes and
workflows for employees and departmental partners.
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Team 1: Streamline Operations
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
4 Centralize Payroll
Policies and
Practices
Streamline and enhance payroll processing and
systems.
Create citywide policies and standardized practices
with consideration for department policies and
structure (e.g., overtime policies).
• Reached out for meeting with Payroll
Administrator. Put on hold pending
appointment of permanent Finance
Director.
• Meet with Finance Director for initial
discussion
TBD Integrate Finance
and Budget Process
Updates into
Performance
Management
Framework
Align finance and budget process updates with the
City’s performance management framework, guided
by the CAO. Continue to embed KPIs to track budget
goals and build a public facing portal for
transparency, allowing residents to monitor progress
and enhance accountability across departments.
TBD Enhance
Communication
Between Finance
and Other
Departments
Building upon the already established fiscal
managers’ budget update process, create an
enhanced budget process communications strategy
that includes standard practices for disseminating
information from Directors to staff, regular staff wide town halls, and regular updates on budget status at
Agency Directors’ meetings.
TBD Develop a Citywide
Accessible Policy
Archive
Create a well-organized filing system of policies and
procedures with access for all City staff with sub-
folders for each department.
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Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration
[Add any “show-and-tell”
images and links to make the
implementation more
tangible]
Community and Digital
Engagement Leads
Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
OVERALL • Reorganized strategic sub-priorities and action items, consolidated duplicative tasks, clarified
in progress/completed
• Review changes with steering
committee
1 Continue to
Leverage &
Maximize
Community
Engagement
Outreach & Data
Working Groups
Create a cross-departmental team of Community
Engagement & Digital Communications Leads to
coordinate each department's engagement
efforts, ensuring a unified voice in digital
platforms, public engagements, and overall
messaging.
• Identified departmental engagement leads
Build a culture of cross-communication and the
structure needed for it to continue
• Rolled out leads project management tool
• Rolled out Messaging Toolkit
• Rolled out Community Engagement -
Standard Operating Procedure (CE-SOP)
• Onboarding engagement leads
• Add Community Engagement
Standard Operating Procedure to
Intranet
• Develop culture of using tracker and
PM tool for coordination
• Set-up second round check-ins with
department leads
• Orient new agency directors to AI 6802
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Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
2 Coordinate City
Housing
Strategic Plans
1. Establish a coordination strategy among
departments managing the City’s housing plans –
capital-focused (complete), anti-displacement (in-
progress), and homelessness (under development)
– to align goals.
• Updated plan to reflect completed action items
• Clarified relevant in-progress and future specific tasks • Regular check-ins established with Office of Homeless Solutions, CAO, CHS • Development Coordination meeting occurs regularly between PBD, HCD, and EWD.
• HCD produces an annual report
• Formalized loops established to inform implementation efforts (with CBOs, data, and stakeholders)
• Oakland HCD + Mayor Lee successfully advocated toState of CA for inclusion of "homelessness need" as afactor in scoring for competitive tax credits
• Engage AC on Measure W
• $38.5 affordable housing/transportation joint award fromState of CA • $4 million lead hazard abatement award from U.S.H.U.D. • $46.5 million in State of CAHomekey awards
• Oakland HCD awarded $63.5 million to five affordablehousing projects that will leverage Alameda CountyMeasure W funds
• Jan: release HCD's anti-
displacement strategic
action plan and
present to CED 1/13
2. Schedule regular cross-departmental check-ins with
key stakeholders and divisions to streamline
communication and coordination, track initiatives, set
joint decision-making protocols, prioritize county
engagement, and integrate homelessness support
actions into the broader housing strategy.
3. Actualize existing capital affordable housing strategic plan developed by Housing & Community
Development Department Administer remaining U
dollars via NOFA programs (new construction,
preservation, etc.).
4. Establish HCD annual reporting on affordable
housing development progress to City Council to
accompany the Annual Progress Report (APR).
5. Create formalized stakeholder feedback loops to
inform future implementation efforts.
6. Engage Alameda County on methods to increase
funding sources for capital, operating, and services
dollars.
7. Continue to pursue advocacy at the State to leverage local resources and increase funding for pipeline
projects.
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Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
3 Building a Holistic
Approach to Public
Safety Including
Emergency
Preparedness
1. Establish structured, regular joint meetings
between Police, Fire, Department of Violence
Prevention, Finance, and CAO to foster open
communication and address support and resource
allocation.
2. Create a shared action plan that outlines mutual
responsibilities during emergencies, with clear
expectations on how police can better support fire
operations.
3. Implement cross-training opportunities to
enhance understanding of each department’s roles
and challenges.
• Researched existing communications and
coordination mechanisms for public safety and
emergency coordination
• Disaster Council – Public Information
Warning Team meeting convened
• Set-up joint meeting with EMSD and
Mayor's Office to learn about existing
progress on shared meeting
• Look into Measure NN coordination
4 Engage Middle
Management in
Decision Making
Processes
1. Engaging middle management in decision-making
fosters a collaborative, transparent environment
where leaders feel valued and connected to
organizational goals.
2. As the closest link to frontline staff, middle
managers bring insights into daily operations and
employee morale that inform practical, effective
strategies.
3. Use town halls or quarterly listening sessions to
share context and establish feedback loops with
middle managers.
• Identified commonalities between Team 2
& Team 3's action items. Anticipate
coordination starting in Year 2.
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Team 2: Foster Cross-Departmental Collaboration
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
5 Strengthen
Governance and
Coordination for
Economic and
Workforce
Development
>> Centralize
departmental
strategic
planning and
goal-setting
efforts
1. Integrate workforce development strategies into all
development plans.
• Discussed with relevant departments
(OakDOT, PBD, and Public Works and
DWES) the need for workforce
development strategies within
procurement process/projects.
• Meet with DWES
2. Refine the governance structure for the existing
development meetings to include establishing
cadence, renaming these meetings to “Development
Coordination” meetings, extending invitations beyond
Housing & Community Development, Planning &
Building, Economic and Workforce Development to
also include the Communications representatives from
CAO, Transportation, Human Resources, Procurement,
and Finance.
• Development Coordination meetings are
ongoing between HCD, EWD and PBD.
• Pending new Assistant City
Administrator start date, will follow up
and coordinate for the next report
out.
• Inclusion of other departments is TBD.
Need to discuss and determine
the intended outcome/purpose of the
expanded membership.
3. Enhance existing shared tracking system to monitor
key project progress.
• Clarifying what "key projects" to
monitor and track.
4. Consider replicating the Department of
Transportation’s tracking tool to enhance efficiency,
improve service delivery, and ensure alignment with
citywide goals and strategic priorities.
• HCD has released GIS
map of their affordable housing portfolio
• Reached out to OakDOT and reviewed
existing tracking tools.
• Need to determine best tool to use.
• Decide which bodies are responsible
for carrying this out
• Determine who the tracking is
intended for.
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Team 3: Enhance Communication & Coordination
[Add any “show-and-tell”
images and links to make the
implementation more
tangible]
Internal Communication’s
Purpose:
Build Awareness
Deepen Connection
Collaboration across Departments
Team 3: Enhance Communication & Coordination
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
OVERALL
1 Strengthen Internal
Citywide
Communication
Practices
Evaluate and update policies and practices for
enhancing citywide communications.
Evaluate policies and practices for enhancing
citywide
communications.
• AI 351: Media Relations
• AI 599: Digital Engagement
• AI 6802: Community Engagement
• Support Citywide Comms Team to
potentially update
AIs.
Based on findings from this evaluation, implement
needed improvements. These improvements could
include but are not limited to:
1. using the Intranet as a centralized
communication platform,
2. monthly interdepartmental newsletters,
3. standardized communication templates,*
4. regular communication training,*
5. quarterly all-hands meetings,
6. internal feedback channels,
7. department liaisons for communications,*
8. weekly update emails on key projects and
policies,
9. emergency communication protocol.*
*Citywide Communications Team
In partnership with
Citywide Comms:
• Defined the purpose and scope of
internal newsletter
• Attained distribution list
• Outlined content structure
Administrative updates
Accomplishments
Community Engagement
Additional Information
• Drafted potential template in
HubSpot
• Meeting with Directors to explore
their perspective on cost/benefits
of newsletter
• Follow up meetings with selected
Managers and Supervisors to see
what content would be useful
• Refine content structure and
template
• Pilot internal newsletter
• Develop newsletter sustainability
mechanisms
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Team 3: Enhance Communication & Coordination
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
2 Streamline
Communication
Channels Between
CAO and City Council
Implement an internal communication framework
that ensures timely updates from City Council and
the City Administrator's office are shared across all
levels of staff. This can include regular bulletins, a
dedicated internal newsletter, or town hall
meetings to keep staff informed about major
initiatives and goals.
• YEAR 2
3 Enhancing Decision
Transparency and
Staff Engagement
CAO to identify potential policies and practices for
sharing the impact and purpose of
decisions/decision making. These could include
decision rational reports, regular decision making
updates, developing case studies that outline
specific decisions, post-implementation reviews,
and annual decision-making process training that
includes the review of Evaluation Criteria. Establish
a system for gathering staff input on challenges
and successes in aligning with city priorities. This
will include surveys, feedback sessions, and open
forums to ensure a continuous loop of
communication and improvement.
• YEAR 3
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Team 4. Optimize Workforce Management
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
OVERALL
1 Optimize Intranet
for Enhanced
Communication
and Transparency
Optimize the centralized intranet for improved
information sharing and transparency across
departments. Communications CAO representatives
to establish Department page templates. Each
department manages and updates its page,
supported by a citywide website update in the
upcoming fiscal year for easy access to basic
information for staff and constituents. Implement
staff training on accessing and providing feedback
on employee resources through the intranet.
• Reviewed examples of dept SP sites and
content in HR site.
• Met with ITD on SP site.
• Options for location: HR Dept SP or
document library; Revise SP templates and
info architecture (SP vs. website; within SP
and templates)
• Collect and review research re:
communication and intranet
• Gap analysis on website and intranet:
users’ perceptions of the content and
navigation of SP and website and what
are their most common use cases
• Coordinate/Explore with Group 3
Communications on intranet, website,
and central site/link for depts.
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Team 4. Optimize Workforce Management
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
2 Increase
Communication
and Resources
Related to Equity
Indicators and Goals
Promote the refreshed Equity Indicators Report
citywide to enhance individual staff understanding,
department-level roles, and citywide impact.
Develop coordinated cross-departmental
mechanism to align department-level
activities/efforts to internal equity goals.
Reviewed/Discussed Equity Indicators Report.
Status of new report is still pending. • Collect and research equity indicator usage: what worked, what
needs improvement, how indicators
evolved?
• Await new report before
developing workforce management
integration plan
• Coordinate/Explore with Group 1 role
in performance management.
3 Strengthening
Employee
Performance and
HR Coordination
Department managers will collaborate to streamline
workload management and training resources,
aligned with budget impacts, to effectively support
staff performance. Evaluate and enhance roles and
responsibilities of Single Points of Contact (SPOCs)
to improve coordination and support across
departments. This approach promotes shared
responsibility and reinforces HR’s capacity to meet
employee needs effectively.
Reviewed HR previous or in-progress research:
• Initiated discussion on HR research Integrated
racial equity analysis
• Implemented feedback improvements (split
day-long trainings)
• Collect and review HR research:
training, appraisals, process mapping,
promotions
• Gap analysis for workload management
and HR rep roles
• Survey managers/supervisors/ HR
SPOCs
• Design process research with key
stakeholders
• Coordinate with Group 1 on hiring
transparency and onboarding
standardization goals
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Team 5: Align Budget with Citywide Priorities
# Strategic
Sub-Priority
Actions PROGRESS
What’s Happened
2025 Jul-Dec
What’s Next
2026 Jan-Mar
OVERALL
1 Launch Evaluation
Criteria Citywide in
Preparation for
Budget Process
Implement a department-level strategy for using the
Strategic Plan-developed evaluation criteria to review
project and service recommendations, ensuring
decisions align with budget realities while balancing
racial equity in prioritization and resource allocation. • Team presented at the
monthly Finance Manager Meeting (~100
attendees)
• Developed & distributed survey for
finance managers
• Analyzed survey responses
• Met with Capital Improvement
Project Team at DOT to hear about their
lessons learned from budget
prioritization efforts.
• Met with the Department of Race & Equity
to explore synergy between the existing
Service & Equity and
Impact Statement and the
Evaluation Criteria Scale.
• Team will develop a single tool that
overlays the Evaluation Service Criteria
with the existing Service & Equity
Impact Statement tool to help
departments prioritize resource for
essential services.
• Pilot tool with DOT, DVP, IT, and OFD
during mid-cycle budget process.
• Gather feedback and lessons learned
from the pilot to launch the tool next
year for the FY27-29 Biennial Budget
planning process.
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Team 5: Align Budget with Citywide Priorities
Team 5: Align Budget with Citywide Priorities
FY 2025-27 Budget – Equity and Service Impacts (Form 3) • This form must be completed for ALL services provided by the department. The Department, Service, Service ID#, Alignment to Council Priority, and Service Description fields below have been prepopulated using the list of services submitted to our office during Phase 1. Please review and update the information as needed to ensure accuracy and complete any fields that are currently blank.
For each service, department must develop:
• Service Impact Statement: Provide a description of the proposed changes and describe their impacts on the service.
• Equity Consideration: Address how the proposed changes impact equity within the community or organization.
LEARN MORE
Ongoing materials and updates to the Citywide Strategic Plan will be available at this website:
OAKLANDCA.GOV/STRATEGIC-PLAN