TO: COMMUNITY AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
FROM: Rosalynn Hughey
SUBJECT: City Council Focus Area
Status Report: Growing our
Economy
DATE: May 22, 2026
Approved Date: 6/4/2026
RECOMMENDATION
Accept the status report on the Growing our Economy City Council Focus Area implementation for Fiscal Year 2025-2026, Third Quarter.
BACKGROUND
On September 30, 2025, the City Council approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025-2026 Focus Area work plans developed under a new model. This framework is designed to strengthen and accelerate progress on San José’s most significant, cross-cutting challenges.1 The model organizes City efforts into five Focus Areas:
1. Increasing Community Safety
2. Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness
3. Cleaning Up Our Neighborhoods
4. Building More Housing
5. Growing Our Economy
The Focus Areas represent a major shift from data reporting to a shared learning model, structured through quarterly cycles of planning, executing, reflecting, and improving.
Each Focus Area is supported by a logic model (a framework linking long-term goals to near-term actions and measurable results) and by a regular cadence of retrospective learning sessions that enable teams to adjust strategies in real time and report insights to the City Council.
1See September 30, 2025, City Council, Item 3.4, City Council Focus Areas Semi-Annual Status Report. https://sanjose.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=14796341&GUID=F10DEA6B-E69E-4648-A366- E7C99FB38D05
CED COMMITTEE AGENDA: 6/15/26
ITEM: (d)3
COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
May 22, 2026
Subject: City Council Focus Area Status Report: Growing our Economy
The purpose of the Focus Areas is to promote accountability for driving positive outcomes and performance on a very limited number of priorities most greatly impacting the community, and to generate actionable and measurable solutions to address those priorities. Each Focus Area is not designed to include all related City services, though each varies in breadth and complexity. Staff currently provides quarterly status reports on the Focus Areas, alternating between the City Council and the aligned City Council Committee. Staff reported on the Focus Areas (First Quarter Status Report) to City Council Committees during December 20252 and to the City Council on March 10, 2026, with status updates.3
ANALYSIS
Building the Infrastructure for Long-Term Impact (June 2025–March 2026) Between July and September 2025, the Administration focused staff capacity on building logic models that would serve as the foundation for a shared long-term vision for each Focus Area. Since City Council approval, the Administration has focused on establishing the people, processes, and technology that will sustain this new performance learning infrastructure. In December 2025, staff re-launched dynamic, public dashboards for each Focus Area to increase transparency and accountability.4 These dashboards were designed based on user experience interviews to enhance engagement and usability.
Additionally, during the initial period since the City Council formally accepted the new model, teams have learned how to apply execution-as-learning, which is an approach to testing small changes, documenting observations, and refining their approach. This process builds the City’s internal capacity for adaptive learning while maintaining focus on results.
Through this model, City leadership is encouraging curiosity and reflection through questions such as:
• What are we seeing in our metrics to date? How do we make sense of what we are seeing?
• What did we observe from this past cycle? What went well? What could have gone better?
• What barriers are limiting progress? What are we learning as a result? 2 December 2025 Committee Updates. Increasing Community Safety, Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness, Cleaning Up Our Neighborhoods, Building More Housing, and Growing Our Economy. 3 See March 10, 2026, City Council, Item 3.4, City Council Focus Areas Status Report for Fiscal Year 2025-2026. https://sanjose.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7928730&GUID=98CD802A-7D82- 4424-8825-B838DC35A424&Options=&Search=
4 https://www.sanjoseca.gov/your-government/departments-offices/office-of-the-city-manager/city-councilfocus-areas
COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
May 22, 2026
Subject: City Council Focus Area Status Report: Growing our Economy
• What is the main issue we should address to continue making progress? • What will we adjust in the next cycle to have the most impact? Staff invites committee members to ask similar questions during these updates, as committee reports offer an opportunity to learn together about how our collective efforts are working in practice. During committee discussions, staff welcomes conversations about what we are learning from implementation, and what the data, stories, and staff experiences suggest about the effectiveness of current interventions. These updates are not intended to modify problem areas, near-term goals, or success measures, which are established and adjusted by the full City Council through the budget process.
However, committee members are encouraged to explore how we measure success, such as opportunities to disaggregate or contextualize existing data, where available, to deepen understanding of outcomes and equity impacts.
Focus Area Updates and Lessons Learned
This Committee oversees the following Focus Area: Growing our Economy This status report provides the Focus Area’s long-term goal, the problem areas that have been identified with each near-term goal, and its status and explanation. Status for each near-term goal is reported as either complete, on track, at risk, or off track according to the following criteria:
• Complete. The goal has been fully achieved.
• Green / On Track. The goal is progressing as planned or is on track for completion during the fiscal year, given minor delays that do not jeopardize timely completion.
• Yellow / At Risk. The goal faces challenges that may require additional time beyond the fiscal year to complete or challenges where the scope of the goal may not be fully achieved.
• Red / Off Track. The goal is significantly delayed and may not be completed unless substantial interventions are made.
FY 2025-2026 third quarter updates are summarized in the Attachment, and more data and learnings will be expanded upon in the staff presentation.
What’s Next: Continuing to Learn and Build
The Administration views FY 2025–2026 as a pilot year that is focused on building the infrastructure, tools, and culture needed for long-term success.
Key next steps include:
• Iterating on the user experience for the community of public-facing dashboards for each Focus Area.
COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
May 22, 2026
Subject: City Council Focus Area Status Report: Growing our Economy
• Implementing near-term goals and associated change initiatives. • Refining processes and metrics through regular retrospectives and interdepartmental coordination.
• Cultivating a work environment and team culture that ensures staff are supported to test new approaches, identify challenges early, and learn openly. • City Council consideration and approval of a Manager’s Budget Addenda with FY 2026-2027 Focus Area Work Plans.
The Administration’s learning from the full year of this foundational work will be reported to City Council in fall 2026, which will include further updates on results across all Focus Area near-term goals. As this first year of the Focus Areas new approach to implementation represents an important step in building the long-term infrastructure for performance, learning, and results, staff will also provide relevant implementation insights with recommendations for further improvement in the second year of execution.
While this work takes time to refine, the City is already gaining valuable insight from implementation and developing the systems and culture needed for major, lasting impact.
COORDINATION
This memorandum was coordinated with the City Attorney’s Office, the City Manager’s Budget Office, the Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement Department, the Public Works Department, and the Fire Department.
Rosalynn Hughey
Deputy City Manager, City Manager’s Office
For questions, please contact Erica Garaffo, Assistant to the City Manager, Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs, at [email protected].
ATTACHMENT
Growing our Economy Focus Area FY 2025-2026 Q3 Status Update