City of Evanston Blog
Illinois Municipal League Conference
I have been attending the 96th Annual Conference of the Illinois Municipal League (IML) in Chicago the last two days with Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl, Alderman Jane Grover (pictured left) and City Clerk Rodney Greene.
IML is the organization of Illinois' approximately 1,200 cities, villages and towns and the conference attracts elected and appointed officials throughout the state.
I spent yesterday meeting with other municipal managers and officials from larger communities in Illinois (over 25,000). Per the 2000 Census, Evanston is the 14th largest city in Illinois (and 360th largest in the United States). Interest in Evanston taking an early position on video gaming. Today there were a variety of sessions. I attended sessions on getting more Federal grant money, sustainable design and greening of aging municipal buildings and changes in Illinois' Freedom of Information Act laws that take effect on January 1, 2010. There was also a trade show of sorts with vendors from architects and engineers, to street light manufacturers.
I came away with the knowledge that Evanston is certainly on top of many municipal issues facing our neighbor cities throughout the state (albeit we are larger, and is some instances much larger) than nearly all of them. As a city government, we do not have much interaction with the goings on in Springfield. I hope that Evanston will be more active in IML activities that focus on legislative issues impacting Illinois cities.
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2 Comments
Thanks for comment. Unfortunately, not many productive ideas to solve the problem were discussed.
October 2, 2009 6:30 AM
I'm hoping that Unfunded Pension Liabilities was a topic that was discussed at the IML Conference. Please share some of the suggestions being floated by this organization to reign in this growing problem. Thank You.
September 30, 2009 5:14 PM