In an internal email this week, the City Administrator’s office announced that Oakland Department of Transportation Director Fred Kelley is leaving his post and will soon take over the city’s Parks, Recreation, & Youth Development Department. His announcement took many city staffers by surprise since he’s leaving OakDOT after only a year and a half on the job.
A spokesperson for the city told The Oaklandside that Kelley will move to parks and rec starting March 11.
“Director Kelley is bringing to the role a skillset and a wealth of experience that are uniquely valuable to [the parks department] and its incredible staff at this moment,” city spokesperson Sean Maher said.
The parks and rec department is currently in reorganization mode eight months after Mayor Sheng Thao announced plans to merge it with the Human Services Department as part of a cost savings measure. Harith Aleem currently is the interim parks and rec director. Another interim leader for the department, Dana Riley, recently retired. She took over after J. Nicholas Williams left the job in 2022. Williams faced criticism from the city auditor over allegedly violating city contracting rules.
The merger between Parks, Recreation, and Youth Development and Human Services has not yet been approved by the City Council. The Council will have an opportunity to approve or reject the merger during the mid-cycle adjustment period later this year.
According to the city, Kelley will work during his first few months on establishing a budget plan for “major parks, neighborhood parks, miniparks, and recreation centers,” developing new career plans for staff, including downloading institutional knowledge from people close to retirement and building the department’s equity systems. OakDOT uses historical equity indicators when deciding which communities should receive road fixes first.
The parks and rec department manages 140 parks on top of youth and education programs.
City Councilmember Carroll Fife told The Oaklandside that this is a “good move” because the parks department is in “desperate need of leadership. They need it more than anyone.”
“Bringing leadership to parks and rec allays a lot of the fears and insecurity that [staff] are feeling right now. We know there is a deep need in parks. We need someone there making their top priorities how are we maintaining our free spaces that are accessible to all of our residents,” she said.
City spokesperson Sean Maher said this move reflects “growing stability” in city leadership. The Fire Department recently hired Damon Covington, the Department of Violence Prevention hired Holly Joshi, Emily Wienstein became Community Development Director, and the city is “in the final stages” of hiring for a permanent Economic and Workforce Development Director.
Megan Wier, currently the Assistant Director for OakDOT, will become OakDOT’s Acting Director. Wier was the Safe Streets Division Manager for over two years from the start of the pandemic, leading a team of planners, engineers, and administrators to improve and maintain Oakland’s roads and traffic signals. Before joining Oakland, Wier worked for the San Francisco Department of Public Health on the city’s Vision Zero policies, which focuses on reducing traffic violence. She has a Masters in Public Health from UC Berkeley.
If Wier wants the job permanently, she will have to go through the full hiring process.
Warren Logan, a former planner and transportation policy expert who lives in West Oakland and is running for the D3 council seat, said on Twitter that the next OakDOT Director should focus on improving staff management “to deliver meaningful capital improvements expeditiously” and should work with Councilmembers early in the…
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