by Katie Seeger and Melissa Assion Germanese

Two major items ? plans for the 2006 Partnership for Inclusive Communities and advancing NLC?s economic vitality initiative ? dominated the Advisory Council?s agenda at NLC?s Congress of Cities in Charlotte, N.C.

Advisory Council Chair Steve Burkholder, mayor, Lakewood, Colo., led the meeting, along with Vice Chairs Cynthia McCollum, council member, Madison, Ala., and Luis Quintana, councilmember-at-large, Newark, N.J.

Initiative for Inclusive Communities
NLC President James Hunt, councilmember, Clarksburg, W.Va., launched his plans for the Inclusive Communities agenda in 2006.

Throughout 2005 at the request of Hunt, the Advisory Council developed a framework describing Inclusive Communities. This work culminated in the 2005 Futures Report Inclusive Communities for All and its online companion piece A Resource Guide for Working Towards Inclusive Communities, both of which debuted at the Congress of Cities.

The Resource Guide is a compilation of many of the NLC resources available to help cities work toward becoming Inclusive Communities and can be found on NLC?s website on the Advisory Council page.

Hunt thanked the Advisory Council for its hard work and dedication to this topic, emphasizing that the work on building inclusive communities has only begun.

Hunt asked the Advisory Council to be the first to sign up to get more information on the Partnership for Working towards Inclusive Communities. A flyer asking NLC members to sign up for more information was shared with the Advisory Council and then with all Congress of Cities participants at a number of venues.

To support city and town officials in these activities, NLC will launch in early 2006 the Partnership for Working Toward Inclusive Communities. The partnership will encourage and celebrate local efforts to promote equal opportunity and fairness as well as citizen participation and engagement.

A tool kit for joining the partnership will provide details of how cities and towns can participate and will be available February 1, 2006, on the NLC website.

Initiative Toward a New Economic Vitality
The economic vitality topic emerged as a top priority for municipal officials during the ?trends and changes? assessment that the Advisory Council conducted in 2003 and 2004.

NLC held a Forum on Economic Vitality in June 2005 in Denver, with more than 150 local elected leaders from 11 NLC leadership groups.

Following the forum in June, NLC?s involvement with the topic has produced two resolutions passed by the NLC Board of Directors, testimony by NLC Executive Director Donald J. Borut to the Congressional Saving America?s Cities Working Group, a letter from then-NLC President Anthony A. Williams sent to President Bush calling for a National Economic Summit on Regional Economies and the Future of the United States and a broad range of sessions around economic vitality issues being offered at the Congress of Cities.

More information and copies of these items can be found on NLC?s website on the Advisory Council page.

In addition, a draft paper, Toward a New Economic Vitality, is under review. This paper provides an overview of the issues addressed in these resolutions and the related range of ideas discussed in Denver. This paper will set a shared framework for NLC?s further work.

To find out more about the activities of the Advisory Council, and to obtain copies of Inclusive Communities for All, A Resource Guide to Inclusive Communities, Towards a New Economic Vitality, or many of the other documents mentioned in this article, please visit the Advisory Council page at www.nlc.org.