By Nicole Maharaj
February 3, 2003

The Women Mayors' convened their first semi-annual caucus meeting January 23. San Leandro Mayor (CA) Shelia Young serves as the new chair of the group, and will serve the remaining one-year term for Mayor Sara B. Bost, who could no longer serve as Chair because she decided not to seek re-election for a third term.

"We-ve come a long way since then San Francisco Mayor, now Senator Dianne Feinstein, founded the group twenty-years ago, but to a great degree we still need to be shepherded through the leadership process of the organization. I plan to earnestly work on making positive and constructive strides of improvement during my tenure as chair," said Young.

During the past months, Mayor Young has held meetings with Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran, the staff and others about implementing many changes and improvements for making this group more effective within the organization.

As a first step, under Young's leadership, the Caucus collectively worked on developing a formalized mission and vision statement for the group. The mission statement created by the group is as follows:

The Women Mayors' Caucus is dedicated to increasing, on a non-partisan basis, the number of women mayors in leadership positions within the Conference of Mayors. The Caucus seeks to discuss substantive issues of importance to cities and forward appropriate policy recommendations to the Conference.

The Women Mayors' Caucus is committed to enhancing the leadership capacity of the women who serve as mayors.

During the June Annual Meeting in Denver, Mayor Young will continue to work with the group in identifying the critical goals and objectives that are necessary for implementing the new mission and vision of the group.

During the fall of 2002, Young instituted an "honorary" Advisory Panel, consisting of women mayors already serving in the Conference leadership, to help her guide and direct the group forward in achieving their new goals and objectives.