CONFERENCE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
TO FOCUS ON UNFUNDED MANDATES

Chicago is the site of a national Conference of Local Governments to be held November 13-14. Delegations from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National League of Cities and National Association of Counties will attend.

The 140-participant Conference is being co-hosted by U.S. Conference of Mayors Vice President Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago, and National Association of Counties Past President and Cook Board President John Stroger.

The purpose of the conference is to focus on:
— unfunded mandates that unnecessarily raise the cost of local government;
— creating an investment strategy to enable people to succeed and help build strong, competitive communities in partnership with the private sector; and
— defining the respective roles and responsibilities of government to establish a doctrine of "localism" that decentralizes government decision-making to people in their own communities.

Mayor Daley described the Conference of Local Governments as "Republicans, Democrats, independents, rural, suburban and city people for the first time in the history of this country - I like to emphasize -coming together specifically for a two-day conference with an agenda and coming out with specific recommendations on issues that directly affect the taxpayers we represent."

The Conference of Mayors delegation - led by President Norman Rice of Seattle - includes Rita Mullins, Mayor of Palatine and a member of the Illinois Municipal League Board of Directors.

National League of Cities President Carolyn Long Banks, Councilwoman-at-Large from Atlanta, said, "We believe that the coalition that we are forming and the collaboration that we have formed is going to mean to those average persons that we represent that you have role to play and responsibilities in affecting how governing is going to be perceived from this point on."

Page 22 / Illinois Municipal Review / November 1995