About this Strategic Plan
The purpose of the City Council’s Three-Year Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2025-2028 is to focus resources on the City’s top priorities, as defined in the annual workplans for each priority focus area and was created for the following purposes:
- Prioritization and Re-Prioritization: Clear direction and commitment from the City Council to support the City’s efforts to accomplish its objectives in the face of emerging or competing priorities; or provide clear direction on what other objectives will be deferred, in order to make way for a new, emerging priority.
- Alignment: Improve alignment between City Council, the community and city staff, and with the budget and resources available to accomplish the City’s goals. In addition, the strategic plan aims to better integrate the work already set by existing plans, such as the General Plan 2040 and the Housing Element.
- Transparency and accountability: Improves the City’s ability to measure progress and report out progress towards specific goals and objectives.
An important consideration in the creation of this plan was balancing the ability for City teams to successfully achieve these goals while maintaining excellence in the delivery of core services. The goals outlined within this plan require the coordination and collaboration of cross-departmental resources and community partners to achieve success.
The City of San Rafael provides a comprehensive range of municipal services in-house, making it a "full service" City. Since our services are primarily provided by people, 75% of our overall expenditure goes towards City staff. Our employees perform a wide variety of tasks, including emergency response, community programming, streets and parks maintenance, safety inspections, and more.
The City's primary limitation is financial resources. Sales and property taxes are our biggest revenue source. However, the bulk of these taxes are allocated to entities such as the State of California, the County of Marin, schools, and transit agencies. As a result, our goals and aspirations must be balanced against our duty for responsible fiscal stewardship of public funds.
The City recognizes that these goals cannot be achieved in a vacuum. The City will continue to partner and engage with residents, business owners, community groups, and other stakeholders to ensure that its priorities reflect the needs and aspirations of the community.
San Rafael Priority Areas
San Rafael is guided by seven priority areas. While each of these areas represents a distinct policy focus, they are interrelated and affect each other in significant ways, so although we have categorized them, some goals have the potential to fall into several areas.
Economic Development and Neighborhood Vitality
Strengthen local business growth, revitalize neighborhoods, and create vibrant community spaces that foster economic prosperity and enhance quality of life.
Housing and Homelessness
Facilitate new housing development, assist in ensuring housing stability, support a “Housing First” model, and implement strategies that reduce homelessness.
High Performing Government: Innovative, Inclusive, Efficient, and Accessible
Innovate by implementing forward-thinking solutions, delivering exceptional services that meet community needs equitably, transparently and efficiently.
Mobility and Infrastructure
Enhance and maintain the City’s infrastructure, parks, streets and facilities through the Capital Improvement Program.
Quality of Life: Safety and Wellbeing
Foster a safe, healthy, and thriving community.
Sustainability and Resilience
Foster a resilient community through climate adaptation, sustainability, hazard mitigation, and emergency preparedness efforts.
Equity, Access, Belonging and Opportunity for All
Focus on Creating equitable outcomes and address systemic conditions of injustices.
Core Services
San Rafael thrives through the dedication of its workforce—professionals who deliver essential municipal services with excellence every day. While our strategic priorities guide our future direction, it's the unwavering commitment to exceptional core services that forms the foundation of our community's quality of life and represents most of our annual budget investment.
This commitment to excellence ensures residents and visitors enjoy vibrant neighborhoods, well-maintained infrastructure, engaging cultural spaces, and the security of living in a safe community. Without our dedicated team's steadfast focus on providing quality services, San Rafael simply wouldn't be the special place we all treasure.
Our three-year strategic plan targets advancement in seven priority areas through specific, measurable goals and objectives. By integrating both our strategic initiatives and essential core services into a unified framework, we create powerful alignment that accelerates progress in areas most valued by our community. This holistic approach ensures every action we take contributes to a more vibrant, resilient, and inclusive San Rafael.
