The Women Mayors’ Caucus convened its informal bi-annual gathering, kicking-off the 68th Annual Conference on Friday morning, June 9. Cedar Rapids Mayor Lee R. Clancey chairs the group. Clancey facilitates caucus discussions, bringing leadership, vision and focus to the group as a whole. Interestingly, Clancey, prior to becoming mayor, served as Executive Director of the Renaissance Group, a downtown revitalization organization and served on many community boards and commissions. Clancey the first women mayor of Cedar Rapids, currently serves as an Executive Member Trustee of the organization as well as serving in various other leadership positions within the Conference.

Mary Leigh Blek, the national spokesperson of the Million Mom March organization addressed the Women Mayors’ during the breakfast, citing her experience of how she was incited to become a leader in the gun violence prevention movement, following the shooting death of her son Matthew during an armed robbery in 1994. Blek serves as President and "Chair-Mom" of the Million Mom March, and is a registered nurse with a specialization in public health. In addition, Blek became a founding board member of the Bell Campaign, a national grassroots movement to prevent gun violence and to support the victims, families and friends of people who have suffered from gun trauma. (Also see Gun Violence Task Force Article for more information on page 36 Blek, this initiative and relevant conference policy).

Afterwards, Minneapolis Mayor Sharon-Sayles Belton spearheaded a discussion on issues affecting women at the invitation of Mayor Clancey, because she is publicly known as a champion for public education and strengthening families and children. Sayles-Belton is also the first African- American female Mayor of Minneapolis. The mayor began the discussion by articulating that there is a greater need to develop stronger policy support and coalition building with other groups on women’s issues relating to children, education and youth, producing both stronger and more meaningful short and long-term societal impact.

Overall, the discussion encompassed a variety of issues relating to women including many of the following: 1) Advocating funding for early childhood education similarly to K-12 assistance for accredited centers; 2) Ensuring provision of more quality, affordable child care, while increasing wages for paid professionals; 3) Assuring that both health and dental care are adequately and continuously addressed; 4) Focusing on early childhood prevention and management of mental health issues relating to children; 5) Increasing parenting skills and educational outreach for both young adults and diverse populations; 5) Maintaining a focus on the critical importance of school success for young adults as an action agenda item; 6) Comprehensively focusing on more flexible hours, benefit packages, tele-commuting and part-time employment opportunities, while providing wage equity for comparably skilled women; 7) Enacting stronger national positions on preventing violence against women both nationally and internationally; and 8) Continuing to utilize Colin Powell’s America’s Promise as a model for outlining comprehensive assessments of services for youth as identified by the Search Institute. The women mayors will be soon surveyed to determine the top three areas of focus that they are interesting in pursuing relative to policy and future session discussions.

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