11-Year Veteran of Public Works to Head City Agency Responsible for Keeping San Francisco Clean, Green & Beautiful

3/2/12—Today Mayor Edwin M. Lee and City Administrator Naomi Kelly announced the appointment of Mohammed Nuru as Director of the Department of Public Works (DPW), the nationally accredited City agency responsible for keeping San Francisco beautiful, livable and sustainable.

"Mohammed Nuru is a dedicated public servant who has proven over the last decade to be one of the hardest working City employees keeping San Francisco clean, green and beautiful," said Mayor Lee. "His track record of building bridges and partnering with the community aligns with our common commitment to maintaining the City's infrastructure, delivering outstanding service to residents and visitors, and efficiently managing public works projects that will create jobs and help revitalize San Francisco's economy."

"Mohammed has my full confidence to carry forward Public Works as a world-class organization," said City Administrator Kelly. "San Franciscans will continue to benefit from his leadership and persistence, building on his numerous accomplishments from improving street and sidewalk cleanliness to the successful management of construction projects that reinvigorate and modernize the public realm."

As Director of the Department of Public Works, Nuru oversees the care and maintenance of San Francisco's streets and infrastructure. DPW serves residents, merchants and visitors 24 hours a day, seven days a week with 1,200 employees, providing mechanical and manual street cleaning, graffiti removal services from public property, and maintenance and care for street structures and the public right-of-way. 

DPW also designs, constructs and maintains city infrastructure and public buildings, with 200 active public projects valued at $2 billion, including the San Francisco General Hospital Rebuild, the Cruise Ship Terminal at Pier 27, Moscone Center Improvements, the Public Utilities Commission Headquarters at 525 Golden Gate Avenue, the Chinese Recreation Center, the Bayview and North Beach Branch Libraries, and neighborhood Fire Stations through the Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response Bond Program. 

Nuru became Interim Director of the Department of Public Works in August 2011 when former DPW Director Ed Reiskin left to become Executive Director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). As Interim Director, Nuru has been coordinating the expansion of DPWStat, a management tool that helps enhance service delivery efficiency and has shown to improve the department's responsiveness to street cleaning, landscaping and pothole complaints, and identify areas of opportunity for new and ongoing challenges. In addition, Nuru is overseeing a departmental technology transformation to maximize efficiency and interagency coordination.

In 2011, DPW engaged a record number of 6,600 volunteers in neighborhood cleanup and beautification efforts – a 66% increase in volunteers from the last year. Nuru manages and initiated several apprenticeship programs that give job training and have created over 150 jobs, and he also oversees the $248 million Road Repaving and Street Safety Bond, approved by voters in November 2011, that will repave streets and improve streetscapes throughout San Francisco.

During Nuru's eleven years of service to DPW as Deputy Director for Operations, he worked closely with the City's diverse communities, city agencies, businesses, and nonprofit groups to develop innovative programs to ensure and maintain a safe, clean, functional infrastructure. Nuru coordinated the popular Community Clean Team neighborhood volunteer cleanup events, ran the Mayor's Corridors Program that maintains the City's busiest merchant thoroughfares, and expanded partnerships with the communities to green sidewalks, street medians and underutilized street parks.

"Mohammed Nuru has shown an amazing capacity to recognize the needs of the neighborhoods, and he compliments that with a keen understanding of how the City operates," said Middle Polk Neighborhood Association Chairperson Dawn Trennert. "This makes implementing solutions to complex, challenging issues easier and more timely. Our neighborhood group has worked with Mohammed on issues from simple, routine cleaning initiatives to piloting innovative new programs."