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2007 CONGRESS OF CITIES WORKSHOPS
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Thursday, November 15
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Funding the Future: Long-term Financial Planning
In the coming years, state and local governments will face a host of fiscal challenges. In the next decade alone, state and local government sector expenditures are expected to exceed revenues, with deficits inevitable. Intergovernmental revenue shifts; changing responsibilities; health care costs; pension liabilities; anti-tax sentiments trumping efforts at broader fiscal reform—addressing these issues necessitates comprehensive financial planning. Learn how long-term financial planning can complement the traditional annual city budget process and provide a complete and realistic analysis of a city’s financial environment.
Plan about Town: A Roadmap for Sustainability
Cities of all sizes are considering sustainability issues, but the plethora of options for action can be overwhelming. By encouraging collaboration, setting goals and accounting for results, municipalities across the U.S. are discovering the benefits of sustainability planning. In this workshop, leaders from several cities that have undertaken the planning process share their experiences.
Weathering the Storm: The Critical Role of Partnerships in Emergency Response
Municipalities often need outside assistance immediately following a disaster—most frequently such aid comes from non-profits, private-sector and faith-based organizations. Because nearly 85 percent of our nation’s infrastructure is privately held, cultivating ongoing public-private relationships is crucial. Find out how to nurture strong, effective partnerships that will ensure your municipality’s safety and well-being in the aftermath of a catastrophic event.
Rebuilding from the Inside out
The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis served as a devastating wakeup call about the nation's aging infrastructure. This workshop will explore how our current infrastructure is operating beyond capacity and ways we can increase safety and promote economic growth. Among the topics discussed will be measures all levels of government can take to help restore our nation’s physical assets.
Give Me Shelter: The Community Housing Challenge
Housing is a critical issue for local governments, and many cities are working proactively to develop strategies that address a wide spectrum of housing challenges. These cities are partnering with local and national organizations to leverage resources that reduce the burden of housing costs to residents. Some solutions include setting up trust funds, preserving existing housing, building transitional housing, assisting first-time homeowners, helping the elderly to age in place, and working with banks and mortgage companies to curb predatory lending practices and assist homeowners who are in jeopardy of losing their homes. Representatives of national housing organizations and the mortgage industry will share best practices and actionable solutions that can work for your community.
Back from the Brink: Harnessing Post-Disaster Citizen Power
The impact of a natural disaster can force cities to revise their short-term survival plans and long-term goals. A crucial part of this process is engaging citizens to help rethink and rebuild their communities. In this workshop, participants will hear from local officials and other experts who have worked with citizens to recover their communities after a disaster.
New Americans and Cities: On the Front Lines of the Immigration Controversy
Regardless of what action the federal government takes regarding immigration in the months and years to come, the impact of a rapidly growing immigrant population is felt at the local level right now. Two keys to mitigating fallout from immigration are an informed citizenry and realistic, workable integration and enforcement techniques. Learn the real consequences of immigration on communities as well as proven strategies for managing this complex and often volatile issue.
3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Fiscal Fitness: Coping with Health Care’s Downside
For many cities, the biggest driver of fiscal stress is annual increases in employee and retiree health care costs that far exceed increases in revenue. To make matters worse, new accounting standards require that health care liabilities be reported as part of municipal budgets’ bottom line. Learn how some cities are coping with rising health care costs and budgetary pressures.
"Go Green" and Keep Your City in the Black
Cities are looking to “go green” by purchasing environmentally preferred products that reduce waste, use less energy, are less toxic, and most of all, save money! Which are right for your municipality? This workshop offers tips on cost-effective ways to buy green. Learn about the new “green initiative” purchasing program at U.S. Communities, along with recycling innovations you need to know about.
Cracking the Meth Lab Crisis
Communities across the country are grappling with the increasingly widespread production, distribution, and abuse of methamphetamine. Law enforcement, state and local officials,and the business community are fighting back by joining together to curb the spread of methamphetamines and the dangers they pose. Learn how intergovernmental and mutli-jurisdictional efforts are making progress in some communities, and find out about the resources that are available to help in your community.
Local Motion: New Transportation Technologies
Contrary to prevailing opinion, transportation safety, security, and efficient movement are not unreachable goals. Learn about how new and innovative transportation technologies can make traffic and congestion in your community a thing of the past.
Making the Economic-Community Development Connection
Find out about the connection between state and local economic development policies and how they can be effectively integrated. This workshop will focus on specific economic development policy areas in which states can be most beneficial to cities, with emphasis on the state’s role in helping cities integrate housing and other development efforts.
Small Cities, Big Ideas, Open Mic
Be part of a lively discussion in a talk-show format. A panel of local elected officials from small communities will get the ball rolling. Then the audience will take up the microphone and share innovative and successful small-city ideas. Presentations will include water quality for the future, facilities visioning, and building partnerships.
Breathing New Life into Old Downtown
Revitalizing your city center can be an effective way to address broader economic issues at the local level. But taking the wrong approach it could be detrimental to a city’s economic growth and reputation. In this workshop, panelists will address this topic from the standpoint of cities that have successfully revitalized their downtowns. Featured presentations include America Downtown, New Thinking, New Life Program, a joint service of NLC and HyettPalma,Inc. that helps local leaders by exploring trends in economic development and downtown revitalization. Discover new ways to inspire private/public partnerships, and walk away with successful strategies to help revitalize your own downtown.
Friday, November 16
Attendees are invited to participate in the Downtown Revitalization Clinics held all day Friday, November 16th. (See description).
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
For Better or Worse? Selling and Leasing of Public Assets
Selling public assets has become a politically favorable way for cities to cover costs and generate revenues without raising taxes. But is it ultimately the right choice? Hear the pros and cons of public-asset selling and leasing. What you’ll learn may surprise you.
Transportation and Land Use: Connections that Create Better Cities
Sustainability has many dimensions. This workshop will describe what cities can do with respect to land-use and transportation planning and policy to promote sustainability and create better cities, including transit-oriented development. What does or should “sustainability” mean in the context of metropolitan development? How can and should land-use and transportation planning be structured to promote the objectives of sustainability? What are some practical examples of how that can occur?
Can We Talk? Communicating Across Boundaries
Are you facing the daunting prospect of choosing how best to provide interoperable voice, video and data communications among your city’s agencies and those in surrounding areas? Learn from the experiences of city leaders whose efforts are allowing their emergency responders to communicate quickly and effectively with neighboring jurisdictions.
Municipal Broadband: Local Solutions to a National Problem
With high-speed Internet access increasingly vital to daily functioning, broadband access has the potential to transform the ways we work, play, communicate, govern ourselves, and teach our children. Still, far too many Americans are unable to connect to high-speed Internet or can afford an expensive commercial service. With some 58 million users, the U.S. leads the world in broadband use; but we fall way behind in broadband penetration. Learn how local governments throughout the country are offering fast, affordable—and local—Internet solutions to America’s broadband challenges.
Protect and Build Assets! Guiding Families Toward Financial Stability
Millions of Americans are living on the brink of financial disaster, existing paycheck-to-paycheck, with mounting debt that threatens to push them over the edge. How can municipal leaders help their residents meet basic needs and become more financially stable? This session explores how municipal leaders in some cities are linking low- and moderate-income families to mainstream financial services and crafting neighborhood-based approaches that place vulnerable residents on the path to financial stability.
e-Democracy: The Power and Potential of Online Governance
Most local governments provide information and services online. A few are taking a vital step forward and engaging large numbers of residents in discussion, action, and public decision-making through the Internet. Cities are just beginning to tap the Internet’s potential to support democratic governance. Learn about the latest experiments in this new frontier, and what the future is likely to bring.
2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
A Better Way: Outcome-Based Governance
Results- and outcome-based governance are proven techniques that are being used to establish meaningful connections between municipal officials and the communities they serve. In this workshop, you’ll explore ways to obtain and use performance information that can help boost the quality, efficiency and delivery of municipal services, improve budget and policy decision-making, and enhance communications with residents.
Avoiding the “Water Wars”
Once considered a western or regional concern, water supply and sustainability are emerging issues whose impact is being felt in areas across the U.S. This session will examine major topics in this area, and ways to keep the “water wars” from spilling over onto your turf.
Crime on America’s Streets: Prevention Strategies for Your Community
Violent crime is staging a comeback. Cities across the country face double- and even triple-digit percentage increases in homicides and other violence. Last year, violent crime in cities with populations between 25,000 and 49,000 and between 250,000 and 499,999 showed the largest increases. These statistics confirm that violent crime is on the rise and is not simply a big-city issue. Communities are developing innovative, comprehensive approaches to reverse these trends and restore safety and security. In this workshop, crime prevention and public safety experts will discuss new trends in crime prevention strategies.
Fighting Fat: The City’s Role in Overcoming Childhood Obesity
Childhood obesity is now a national epidemic that threatens the long-term health and well-being of children as well as the economic vitality of communities and local governments that must contend with rising health care costs. Municipal officials are taking action to promote physical activity, healthy eating, and access to healthy foods for their residents. This workshop highlights city/school efforts to implement local wellness plans and other policies and practices that are helping to combat this growing health crisis.
Bringing it All Together: The City's Role in Coordinating Housing and Services
Your city may have more than a million residents and a substantial, affordable housing program. Or it may be a smaller city that is working to make available subsidies to first-time homebuyers. Whatever the size of your community and scope of your residential program, affordable housing is one of the most vital resources you can provide. This workshop will show you how to coordinate affordable housing programs along with other services to ensure that you are helping to set your residents on the best path toward family stability and/or self-sufficiency.
Gems in Your Own Backyard:
Leveraging Your Community’s Cultural Assets to Spark Economic Development
"Downtown After Dinner" and the "Gumbo Trail” are just some of the ways cities and towns are blending art, music, food, and culture to spark economic vitality. This workshop will present an array of approaches that can help you make the most of your community’s assets and solidify its reputation as a great place to live, work, play and visit.
After the Bell Rings: Investing in Citywide Afterschool Systems
Quality programs for children and youth during out-of-school time help keep young people out of trouble and serve as a critical investment in their full and healthy development. Municipal officials can leverage their leadership roles to build strong afterschool systems by convening key stakeholders, forging agreements on program quality standards, conducting asset mapping of out-of-school time opportunities, tracking participation, and forming partnerships to sustain these efforts. This workshop will focus on these and other successful strategies for building citywide systems of high-quality out-of-school time programs that can be adopted in communities throughout the country.
Saturday, November 17
10:45 a.m. - Noon
All Eyes on the Bottom Line: Developing Realistic Budgets in a Time of Active Citizenship
The days of budgeting as an internal government function, the sole province of public officials and their staffers, are fading fast. In many cities, citizens are immersed in the budgeting process. While an encouraging sign for democracy, it can also cause intense growing pains for citizens and officials alike. In this workshop, officials and outside observers share lessons learned on involving citizens in public finance.
Building “Green”
Green architecture and operations can conserve energy, save money, and help protect the environment. When it comes to existing municipal operations and building for the future, a number of excellent opportunities exist to lead by example in your community. Meet the representatives of some leading organizations in the burgeoning field of environmentally responsible building. Hear their perspectives, ask questions, and find out what you need to know to help your community “build green.”
Safe Streets: Preventing Gang Violence
Youth violence, particularly through gang affiliation, has had a devastating impact on communities large and small, compounding other problems faced by both law enforcement officials and residents in the community. This workshop will feature two cities that have adopted a three-pronged strategy for responding to gang violence: stopping the current violence; intervening with those at greatest risk; and preventing gang participation by promoting positive child and youth development that involves entire neighborhoods. Approaches for reducing youth violence in other contexts will also be discussed.
Water Infrastructure: The Role Of Local Elected Officials
Local officials play a critical role in thinking creatively about water management and maintaining public support for responsible investment in water and wastewater systems. The issue is becoming critical as cities across the country contend with aging infrastructures, with no sign of help from the federal government. Find out first-hand how one southwestern city is managing a high-growth environment and increasing water supply pressures. Learn how one northeastern city is using its abundant water supplies and aging infrastructure to address regional economic development.
The Right Stuff: Developing Your Community’s Workforce
America’s local elected leaders understand that the economic vitality of their cities and towns depends on the availability of skilled and qualified workers. Besides benefiting local economic development, enhancing workers’ skills can improve the quality of life, help alleviate poverty, and provide a wealth of benefits to society as citizens realize their stake in the success of their local and regional economy. How can cities play a more assertive and productive role in workforce development? This workshop will focus on how municipal officials, in cooperation with other stakeholders, have the power to help residents develop the skills they need to succeed.
Class Acts: How City Leadership for Public Schools is Revitalizing Communities
Municipal leaders know that their cities’ futures rest in part on the quality of their public schools. But a huge challenge is how best to reform high schools that are outdated or dysfunctional. Low achievement and high dropout rates are gaining the attention of mayors, governors, and other public officials while local partnerships and out-of-the-box thinking are creating new options and alternatives for those students who often struggle in traditional high-school settings. Hear how the leadership of NLC President Bart Peterson has stimulated exciting high school innovations in Indianapolis that engage all sectors of the community and learn what key national foundations and organizations are doing to support similar efforts in cities across the country.
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