Local Government Specialist

Ms. Jackson has over 32 years of local government management experience. She served as City Manager for the City of San Bruno in the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years and the City of Fort Bragg in the coastal Mendocino County for four years. She also served for more than a decade in the Office of the City Manager in the City of Hercules, California, which was at the time one of the fastest growing communities in the state, where she held the positions of Assistant City Manager, Parks and Recreation Director, and manager for the City’s Budget, Redevelopment, and Economic Development functions. Ms. Jackson has extensive experience developing and implementing successful fiscal, organizational, and operational strategies to resolve serious financial deficit situations, including the sharing of core municipal services with other local agencies, restructuring of service delivery systems, and development of public engagement strategies and programs.

Throughout her career, Ms. Jackson established agreements and worked with public- and private-sector partners to ensure community interests in the completion of major development and redevelopment projects, including acquisition of prime ocean bluffs property for public open space, planning for redevelopment of a 400-acre oceanfront property following closure of a lumber mill, development of a new train station, redevelopment of a regional mall and a former navy base, and establishment of a multiple-agency regional groundwater storage and recovery program.

As Director of Emergency Services for the City of San Bruno, California, Ms. Jackson led the City’s acclaimed response to the devastating 2010 PG&E high-pressure gas pipeline explosion and resulting fire that killed eight residents and destroyed 38 homes. That response included negotiation of a $70 million community restitution fund and establishment of the San Bruno Community Foundation to administer the funds for the long-term benefit of the community. Over the course of several years following the explosion, Ms. Jackson and her team developed and successfully pursued advocacy for pipeline safety and utility regulation improvements that ultimately resulted in major legislative, regulatory, and operational reform at the state and national levels.

Ms. Jackson is a member of the International City/County Management Association. She was recognized by the League of California Cities City Manager’s Department as the 2012 City Manager of Distinction. She has presented before a wide variety of audiences on the City of San Bruno experience and pipeline safety. Ms. Jackson holds a bachelor of arts degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she also completed coursework for a master’s degree in Business Administration.

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“I really want to express my appreciation for this work that’s been done in a collaborative way in which the study was put together. . . . I’ve seen a number of studies start in the fire department and this is the first one I can remember that has actually been fully completed and brought to the council, and it was done in a very thorough fashion. This is the best assemblage of comprehensive information about the fire department today, as well as what our needs might be in the future, that I have seen. So thanks to everyone. Thank you, Stewart, for giving us our money’s worth on our consultant contract with you.”

Ken Hampian

City Manager City of San Luis Obispo

“I am really, really impressed. I am impressed at the exhaustiveness of your study, impressed at the honesty and candor with which you expressed your findings; I am very impressed at the constructive tone of it, and that you came in under budget as well. So, thank you very much. I think that this document is going to be a cornerstone for us really moving forward for the next five, ten, twenty [years], half a century.”

Luke Garrott

Salt Lake City Council Meeting

“I wanted to offer my compliments to Citygate, to Mr. Gary for this very comprehensive report.”

John Ashbaugh

San Luis Obispo Council Member

“I really, really enjoyed reading your Word product. I appreciate the fact that it was direct, it was constructive, and . . . it wasn’t finger-pointing, it was just . . . the facts. And I think that the money was well spent.”

J.T. Martin

Salt Lake City Council Meeting

“Thank you very much for a comprehensive report. Thank you.”

Mayor

Palm Springs

“I was absolutely thrilled with the report because it was very comprehensive, very detailed. I call it the ‘time-in-motion study’ almost and some of the aspects [are] ‘how does your paper flow? How can you make your processes better? . . . As a government agency, how can we provide better service to the constituents?’ And to us we think that this study identifies those things down to all of the small paper processes and flows.”

Rita Geldert

Retired City Manager City of Vista, CA

“Thank you so much for this training. This was the best PIO training I’ve ever received.”

Lorrie Brewer

S-403 Information Officer class participant

“Thank you so much for all you have done. And it’s so comprehensive, I know it’s going to take a while for us to digest it all, but I think you’ve come up with some really good recommendations.”

Mayor

Pro Tempore City of Vista, CA

“I think Citygate has done a great job. It seems like you’ve been most thorough and even-handed in your evaluations and you’ve given us certainly a lot of suggestions and guidelines to work with.”

Council Member

City of Vista, CA

“I think this is one of the most comprehensive reports and I think probably one of the best presented reports I’ve seen in my years in government service. I want to start off by commending you for that and acknowledge that the work that you were able to do with cooperation from all of the different firefighting agencies in this region was second-to-none.”

Greg Cox

Supervisor First District San Diego County

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