November 6, 2006

Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell earned GOVERNING Magazine’s Public Official of the Year honor as a mayor “who simultaneously improved his city’s quality of life and spurred business expansion with an ambitious agenda that included strengthened public schools and revitalized neighborhoods.”

Purcell became the first Nashville mayor to receive the honor in the magazine’s 13 years of presenting the Public Official of the Year awards to the nation’s top state and local government leaders. Former Governor Ned McWherter was similarly honored the first year awards were made in 1994, at the end of his second term in office.

GOVERNING Magazine’s Public Official of the Year awards are given in recognition of outstanding achievement at the state and local level. A total of nine 2006 awards were announced by the magazine covering executive and legislative, elected and appointed posts. The winners also include Mississippi’s governor, the speaker of the Massachusetts House, the executive of King County (WA); the president of the New Jersey Senate, Chicago’s library commissioner, Philadelphia’s chief information officer, the Bush administration homelessness czar, and the city manager of Ventura (CA). “These individuals have exhibited a remarkable flexibility,” said Alan Ehrenhalt, GOVERNING’s Executive Editor. “They have thrived in the face of the most daunting and unexpected obstacles, from a natural disaster to a health care crisis to entrenched corruption. Their versatile leadership and innovative policies should serve as models for their peers nationwide.”

The award winners are profiled in the November issue of GOVERNING and will be honored at a dinner November 15 in Washington (DC). GOVERNING, now 19 years old, is an independent national magazine devoted to coverage of state and local government. It has a circulation of 85,000.