A Year of Moving Forward
December 7, 2016
Almost a year ago, I was honored to be elected to serve as your representative on the City Council. It has been a year of accomplishments and successes as a result of teamwork and commitment to excellence by your City Council and City staff. I am grateful to have the support of our professional staff and their commitment to deliver excellent service to our residents and businesses.
In January 2016, the City Council held its strategic visioning meeting and identified six priorities to focus on in 2016. We chose those issues because we believe they will have significant impact on our City’s future.
Those priorities are:
- Land Use
- Traffic and Transportation
- Infrastructure at 50
- Sustainable Foster City
- Quality Schools
- Citizen Engagement
The City Council immediately got to work and established subcommittees for each priority, with the task to do the due diligence work and report back to the entire Council for debate and approval of the committees’ recommendations.
The major accomplishments in 2016 include:
- Establishing the Communications Division and launching an extensive citizen engagement campaign; including Foster City Forum, social media presence, Foster City Current, a Business Roundtable, Foster City Access App and a business e-newsletter.
- Adopting the Economic Development Strategic Plan with initiatives including Scoop Foster City (a carpool sharing program), Kiva Foster City (a micro lending program), Business Ombudsman Program, Business Development Portal, Business Communication Initiatives and Policy Review.
- Fiscal responsibility and transparency by adopting a well-balanced budget with surplus.
- Maintaining high quality essential services through successfully negotiating a fair labor contract with Police and Fire.
- Investing in maintaining the City’s infrastructure; including roadway improvements, the wastewater treatment plant and levee system.
- Securing $200,000 through creative idea by our Public Works Director Jeff Moneda and earmarking the funds for a solar panel rebate program.
- Excellent working relationship between City staff and the City Council which resulted in high morale and productivity.
- Authorizing a bicycle and pedestrian study.
- Adopting a 100% renewable energy & 100% carbon free rate plan to all Foster City owned municipal facilities.
In my humble opinion, all of these accomplishments would have been hard, if not impossible, to achieve if we did not have the proper decorum on the City Council where robust debates and tolerance for disparate views are welcomed. A great credit is due to the leadership of Mayor Perez who set the tone and tenor for this City Council early in January. It was time to face forward and work as a team for the betterment of our community. Mayor Perez initiated a process where the meetings are dynamic and concise, which resulted in shorter and more productive meetings. He also initiated the establishment of the subcommittees, which proved to be extremely efficient and beneficial. The relationship between City Council and City staff is the best I have seen and is one based on mutual respect and appreciation to each other.
As we celebrate these accomplishments together as a community, it is important to remember that they are the result of teamwork between the City Council and City staff with valuable input from you, our constituents.
I welcome your comments, you can reach me at: shindi@fostercity.org.
