By Nicole Maharaj
February 9, 2004

The Women Mayors held both their regular networking meeting and reception event on January 22 during the conference's 72nd Annual Winter Meeting. San Leandro Mayor Shelia Young serves as Chair of the group and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin serves as Vice Chair. Franklin will advance to Chair of the group at the end of the Women Mayors' Caucus meeting in June.

The Women Mayors' Caucus was founded in 1983 by Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA), who was then mayor of San Francisco, to provide time for women mayors during the Winter and Annual Meetings to meet informally and exchange information. Its purpose is to assist in recruiting and advancing more women mayors into leadership with the Conference.

The purpose of this group is to: 1) welcome new women mayors to the Conference of Mayors, and brief them on the structure of the organization, while encouraging their participation; 2) provide a network for participation and membership of women mayors in the Conference; 3) allow time for informal discussion on issues of interest to women mayors semi-annually; and 4) encourage women mayors, in a non-partisan manner, to assume more responsibility throughout the organization and communicate nominations of interested women mayors to members of the Conference's Nominating Committee at the June Annual Meeting.

During their meetings held last year, under the leadership and direction of Mayor Young, the group was able to collectively develop and finalize an official mission and vision statement, which allows the group to forward policy recommendations to existing standing committees within the Conference. The statements are as follows:

Mission Statement

The Women Mayors' Caucus is dedicated to increasing, on a non-partisan basis, the influence of women mayors 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 increasing the leadership numbers of the women who serve as mayors.

Vision Statement

The Women Mayors' Caucus shall promote increasing numbers of women mayors in prominent and meaningful positions of leadership within the Conference and advance policy issues of importance to cities through existing Standing Committees.

Young has been able to bring needed structure and more direction to the group over the last year during her tenure as Chair. For example, during the fall of 2002, she instituted an "honorary" Advisory Panel, consisting of women mayors already serving in the Conference leadership, to help guide and direct the group forward in accomplishing their goals. This panel (which varies in size) now consists of thirteen women, and has lent great representation and focus to the group since convened. The mayor also instituted a Vice-Chair position to ensure continuity and needed transition with the Chair position. Young also served as representative on the Nominating Committee in June 2003 while helping to usher many women mayors into leadership positions on the advisory board last year.

"I believe we have strengthened our vision and direction for the future, because of the changes we have made over the last year. I would like to believe the cohesive nature of our group with our vision and objectives clearly stated have led to a greater impact on future policy and legislative initiatives undertaken by the Conference of Mayors. I anticipate there will continue to be great progress and positive changes during 2004," said Young.

Robin Read, President and CEO of the National Foundation for Women Legislatures (NFWL) made a brief presentation to the group as guest speaker. The mission of NFWL is to provide strategic resources to women leaders for leadership development and effective governance through conferences, seminars and educational materials for women. One of the primary events for NFWL is its' Women Lawmaker's Networking Day held on Capitol Hill each year.