Ms. Bristow has more than 25 years of experience in high-level management, working with city councils, boards of directors, commissions, developers, unions, communities at large, special districts, and homeowner associations. She has experience in both the public- and private-sector, having served Alameda County for 16 years and the City of Hayward for more than 10 years in a variety of capacities, as well as serving as an Executive Director for West Coast Code Consultants since 2018. As the Neighborhood Partnership Manager in Hayward, she developed and managed the Mural Arts Program, which won the 2011 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence in the area of Community Services and Development. She also facilitated and executed the settlement agreement between Caltrans and various third parties. Before working for the City of Hayward, Ms. Bristow served Alameda County in the roles of Deputy Planning Section Chief in the Office of Emergency Services and Redevelopment Specialist for the County’s Community Development Agency. Ms. Bristow is skilled in crisis management, advanced mediation, and comprehensive facilitation. For more than 35 years, she has served as Chief Executive Officer of Energy Company, which, in part, provides organizational and executive life coaching. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Administrative/Criminal Justice from California State University, East Bay (formerly Hayward), and is currently working on her master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and Innovation from Grand Canyon University.
“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.”
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.”
Salt Lake City Council Meeting
“I wanted to offer my compliments to Citygate, to Mr. Gary for this very comprehensive report.”
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.”
Salt Lake City Council Meeting
“Thank you very much for a comprehensive report. Thank you.”
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.”
Retired City Manager City of Vista, CA
“Thank you so much for this training. This was the best PIO training I’ve ever received.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Supervisor First District San Diego County