The City of Albany, Oregon CIP can be viewed here:
http://www.cityofalbany.net/departments/public-works/engineering/capital-improvement-program

Major operations all have adopted long-range master plans that were a result of a citizens committee establishing the program. This includes Water, Sewer, Transportation and Parks. These forward looking documents can span a couple of decades and are the basis for the 5-year plan. That is the essential criteria for project selection, based by the recommendation and timing needs by the staff experts involved.

Public Works coordinates the production of the annual plan document. Each responsible department prepares their project list and manages their funding streams. General city projects will be planned by the most appropriate operation.

The annual plan is reviewed by the combined City Council and Citizen Budget Committee. Final adoption is by the council as part of the budget process.

Primary determining factor is the relationship to moving the adopted master plans forward. Council/Budget Committee have on occasion requested specific projects, but that does not happen very often.

As the projects move forward major contracts go through Council approval. Project overages over a threshold amount must be approved by the Council. Significant projects may have regular progress reports, but routine projects rarely do unless a question arises. Final close-out and costing is sent to the Council in a staff report.

Portland Parks & Recreation has a Capital Planning Manual that outlines the process and criteria for rating all projects on our capital list (currently we break the CIP list into 1-5 year, 5-10 year, and 10-20 year increments).
http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?a=373961&c=38306

Appendix 1 includes the request form itself, Appendix 2 includes the rating criteria.

Community members helped to develop the criteria, though the annual rating process is conducted by a group of internal Bureau staff. A group of communtiy and staff members making up the Budget Committee reviews CIP recommendations during the annual budgeting process.