Washington, DC
April 27, 2012

ORLANDO! TEN NEW REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO BE THERE! - JUNE 13-16

If there is any question in your mind about coming to Orlando, here are ten reasons why you, as mayor, should be there.

We are going to have special, more intimate sessions for you. You will go to these sessions and we guarantee that there will be a "takeaway" for you to take back home. Here’s the list in random order:

At our recent ports/exports meeting in Jacksonville, we learned there are some cities like Akron, Ohio that are exporting their goods to the world. Other cities can do this. There is a fear factor. Some small and medium sized cities are reluctant. It shouldn’t be that way. Come to this forum and see for yourself that 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside of the United States. One percent of USA businesses export goods and yet 40 percent of USA growth will be export driven. Come see how other mayors are doing it. Middle class citizens of China and Latin America love and crave American goods. It’s an opportunity for you to do so much more with goods and services produced in your hometown. I believe this session will wake up many mayors so that we can increase the market share of the world. It’s the future and you need to be a part of it.

Many of you have lots of vacant lots and buildings owned by the city. You can increase your city’s bottom line learning from industry experts how you can turn this challenged property into profitable real estate attractive for commercial, residential and public use. Mayors and industry experts will give you strategies to take home. You will be surprised to see just what you can do with the property you now own.

Today, there are 1.6 million new high-paying jobs available in the natural gas industry. That’s the good news. The bad news is that just a few Americans have the skill-set required for these good jobs. In this forum you can learn how to get your citizens trained for the jobs. This forum is a specific example in one industry where the jobs are there but not enough people are trained to do the jobs. You can learn here how your city can work with educational and training institutions and energy companies to create strong job opportunities for your local workers.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will bring his Silicon Valley/San Francisco experience to Orlando. He’s heading up a task force on this subject. His best practices will give you information and specific actions you can take home as cities continue to embrace new technology, replicate successes, and strengthen their local technology economy.

As Washington moves toward a smaller military force and a smaller budget, cities throughout America will feel the change. We will have Defense Department Officials, defense industry experts, and Congressional defense analysts in Orlando to help you get a better picture of how decisions will affect your city so that you can be better prepared for the challenges ahead for your people and your city.

Social Media is now a part of our daily lives. At our Winter Meeting, mayors told me they wanted more information and discussion. At this forum, mayors will share success stories and determine how they use new communication tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and You Tube to better communicate with their constituencies and better govern their cities.

Today, so many mayors are using federal and private business models to support robust urban agricultural economies in their cities. In this Forum, you will learn how you mayors have created market-based incentives to finance grocery store retailing healthy corner store initiatives and farmers markets. Policy changes and new zoning requirements will be discussed and recommended. Urban gardening is big in America. And it can be a bigger part of your local economy than you realize. This topic is long overdue and it is waiting for you in Orlando.

Thousands of American veterans, who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, are headed back to your cities within the next year and a half. These new vets have special skills that can be adapted to businesses in your city. They will also be equipped with federal assistance entitling them to housing and education and health benefits, which brings value to your city. Mayors are key to the reintegration of our veterans. Some cities already have veterans departments within their cities and are on top of it. Other cities need to learn more about their returning citizens so they can be successful in moving all veterans toward a life they richly deserve.

Preventing violence is a priority for every mayor, and the CeaseFire model being implemented in several cities has been shown to be effective in reducing shootings and killings. In this Forum mayors will learn about CeaseFire’s unique, interdisciplinary, public health approach to violence prevention and how to implement it in their cities.

In addition to these nine Forums, we will hold a plenary session of most importance on Pension Reform.

The Pension Reform discussion with give and take, and question and answer sessions, will be led by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. Mayors are going through turmoil and political turbulence as they face the necessity to adjust budgets through sound pension reform. It must be done in many instances for the city to survive in this challenged economic times. Our members want more on pension reform best practices and we are following through on this so that you can learn more in Orlando how other mayors are confronting and acting on this challenge.

Thanks to Conference President L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa we will have a strong annual meeting program with national speakers and dynamic plenary sessions. Also, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and his team have produced evening events in world destination venues with sights and sounds and tastes that you won-t forget.

And, we will do our business of debating and adopting important policy resolutions that will guide our organization forward.

And new this year - as listed above these dynamic forums are a part of the new United States Conference of Mayors. We must give you something for your city at our meetings you can-t get anywhere else. Our members in 2012 don-t want long speeches and pontificating. They want shorter speeches and more time for give and take discussions and more Q and A sessions. And above all they want to learn best practices, "takeaways", so they can take new innovations home to implement.

Nowhere is there a meeting where mayors come to learn from other mayors. We have just come through the greatest recession since the Great Depression. And through this period painted as gloom and doom by the national press, so much is vibrant and innovative in our cities. We will celebrate our best in Orlando. We will bring these innovations to our national stage just for you in Orlando. You will discover and want to take the best of the best home with you for your city.

So, if you haven-t registered for our 80th Annual Meeting, I have given you ten new reasons to attend the new US Conference of Mayors in Orlando.

Register now for our 80th Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, June 13 – 16. You can register online at: usmayors.org/registration or call Carol Edwards at 202-293-7330.

Stay tuned for more information on our Orlando meeting. It’s the place you need to be this June. See you soon in Orlando!