City

Oakland, California’s CIO stepped down this month

Oakland, California, CIO Andrew Peterson rejoined the private sector after more than four years leading technology projects in the San Francisco Bay Area city.

By Colin Wood

June 16, 2021

Oakland, California (Getty Images)

Andrew Peterson, Oakland, California’s top technology official, stepped down earlier this month to take a role as the chief technology officer for Riviera Partners, a San Francisco recruiting firm.

Peterson, whose departure was first reported by Government Technology magazine, came after more than four years as the city’s chief information officer. In addition to maintaining the city’s enterprise technology and data centers, he’s also credited with developing the Reimagining Public Safety dashboards, an tool designed to improve monitoring of Oakland Police Department officers. (In January, Oakland also approved a ban on predictive policing and biometric surveillance tools.)

Andrew Peterson (LinkedIn)

A former technology executive for several telecommunications and technology firms, including the multinational CA Technologies, Peterson also led work at the city government on various IT modernization throughout the pandemic, including a mobile app for homeless residents.

In an internal memo shared with StateScoop, City Administrator Ed Reiskin thanked Peterson for his “diligence, dedication, commitment, and care.” Reiskin pointed to Peterson’s work deploying 1,500 Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the city and OAK APPS, a digital services platform, as well as his work improving transparency at the police department.

“I believe the work he’s done speaks for itself and I thank him for helping to make a difference for the community of Oakland employees, residents, and visitors. Join me in wishing Pete well as he embarks on this next chapter in his career,” Reiskin wrote.

Other Oakland technology officials have also told StateScoop that improving citizen services is a top priority, including Mai-Ling Garcia, Oakland’s digital engagement officer, who in 2019 detailed some of her work consolidating services used by different agencies and making them more user-friendly.

A spokesperson told StateScoop a replacement hasn’t yet been named and that the city will likely “do a recruitment.”