Sunnyvale council narrows strategic priorities, asks staff for two‑year work plan

Sunnyvale — The Sunnyvale City Council spent a full-day strategic workshop on March 13 reviewing community survey results, budget projections and department updates and emerged with a compact set of priorities it directed staff to turn into a two‑year work plan.

Council members, the city manager and department directors emphasized keeping the list short, aligning priorities with the city’s budget cycle and producing measurable milestones. After wide discussion, council members coalesced around four headline priorities — modernizing city government operations, building an accessible and welcoming community, advancing climate action and sustainable mobility, and supporting the unhoused while prioritizing new housing — and asked staff to add a specific focus on modernizing aging infrastructure as a fifth implementation theme.

City manager Tim Kirby framed the day as a shift to “give staff a lot of time to make progress on the strategic priorities” and said staff will return with a work plan tied to the budget workshop timetable. “We want to align our strategic priorities more with our election cycles and with our budget process,” Kirby said during the session.

Why it matters: Council members said a shorter, clearer set of priorities will help the city show measurable progress and enable staff to match resources to outcomes. The council also pledged to use the results of the National Community Survey — presented at the workshop — and the council members’ pre‑work to guide measurable steps and reporting back to the public.

What council agreed to direct staff to do

- Modernize city government operations: Council asked staff to pursue improved data transparency, expand reporting (including…