Mayor Represents state at national cities meeting
Eufaula mayor Joe Johnson recently attended the national league of cities meeting in San Antonio, Texas and represented the state of Oklahoma as its league president.
Some 7,000 municipal leaders came for NLC's 1986 congress of cities on the offensive, “determined to insert urban programs into the national debate and to focus national attention on the raw facts of human suffering,” said San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, the outgoing president of NLC. In the shadow of the Alamo, where Texans made their determined last stand in their fight for freedom, city officials from across the nation agreed to launch a determined fight of their own-in the battle to maintain a role for cities in the federal/local partnership.
Four legislative priorities-on mandates, federalism and welfare reform, reauthorization of key urban programs, and tax reform. Johnson and OML Executive Director, Don rider, attended many sessions and workshops designed to help municipal officials.
These included: Tax reform and your city; Attracting travelers' dollars; protecting your city from lawsuits; capitalizing of your cities assets; Shaping your city's future; Municipal Purchasing: Cost saving techniques for your city and private resources for public purposes.
Along with this, those in attendance heard from both democratic and Republican Presidential hopefuls. Cisnero said the appearance of four possible 1988 presidential hopefuls at the conference reaffirmed that “this is an organization attuned to issues.”
The Rev. Jessie Jackson, who spoke before Democratic municipal officials on Sunday, Nov. 30, Advised potential candidates to use “massive direct action.”
