Porcari

LANSING, Michigan - With transportation being such an important topic in Michigan right now, the League is honored to announce that John Porcari, the United States Deputy Secretary of Transportation, will be speaking at the 2013 Michigan Municipal League Capital Conference.

Porcari will be the keynote lunch speaker at the conference 11:30-1 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, in Lansing. Porcari was nominated to serve as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation by the Obama administration in April of 2009 and was confirmed by the Senate in May of 2009. He previously served as the Deputy Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation in 1997 and 1998 and was also the secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation on two separate occasions.

For more information about the League’s 2013 Capital Conference, go here.

Matt Bach is the League's Director of Media Relations. He can be reached at mbach@mml.org and (734) 669-6317.

This is one of more than 700 hundred photos from the League's 2012 Convention. Check out more here.

There are now hundreds of photos available in this collection on the Michigan Municipal League's flickr page from our 2012 Convention on Mackinac Island. Please check them out.

Also many of you asked for copies of the various presentations given during the many education sessions that took place during Convention. We are loading those on this page as quickly as we can.

Grandville officials celebrate winning the 2012 Community Excellence Award. Read the press release.

MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan - The city of Grandville was honored with the Michigan Municipal League's 2012 Community Excellence Award on October 5 at the League's Annual Convention on Mackinac Island.

The peer-nominated Community Excellence Award, affectionately called “The Race for the Cup,” was started by the League in 2007 to recognize innovative solutions taking place in Michigan’s cities, villages and urban townships. Grandville’s expansion and renovation project created a clean water plant that incorporates innovative wastewater treatment technology.

Read more in this press release. View photos from the CEA competition.

Clarence Anthony speaks at the 2012 Michigan Municipal League Convention.

MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan - Clarence Anthony, Mayor for the lakeside city of South Bay, Florida, is President, Anthony Government Solutions, Inc. Despite being mayor for a relatively small community, he has also emerged as a city leader of national and international standing. Mayor Anthony's accolades include the Ebony Magazine Future Leader, Outstanding Young Men in America and Outstanding Community Leaders in America awards, as well as the Florida Junior Chamber of Commerce Mayor of the Year. However, it was with his election as 75th president of the National League of Cities for 1999 (only the second from a small city) that his arrival as a city leader on the national stage arrived. This was later augmented with his 2007 election as treasurer and first vice president of the United Cities and Local Governments organization.

Anthony talked about growing up in a small town in Florida, opening his speech with an inspiring poem about "being told it can't be done--and I did it." That starting point led Anthony's audience through a powerful, inspiring and often humorous narrative of how Anthony became a strong leader with an awareness of the world around him and what could and should be learned from it.

"The easy part is getting elected. Being educated to govern properly: that's the hard part," Anthony told his audience as he explained how first the Florida League of Cities and then the National League of Cities provided him with resources, educational opportunities and lobbying advocacy to accomplish goals at home in his own small town. He has gone on to visit over 30 countries in the last 10 years, learning from their best practices and sharing his own knowledge to enrich both. Many in the audience chuckled with recognition when he talked of city officials who might be opening their agenda packet for the first time when they walk into the council chambers for a meeting, instead of being prepared withthe  knowledge and information to get things done.

There are four pillars to learning global and leading local, he said: a willingness to learn, self-cultural awareness, inclusiveness and the ability to share and work together.

Anthony's speech was an uplifting and inspiring start to the TED-style speeches that followed on civic engagement, arts and culture as an economic driver, and sustainable community design.

Linden Mayor David Lossing was selected as the 2012-13 MML Board President

MACKINAC ISLAND, Michigan - Linden Mayor David Lossing was unanimously selected Wednesday (Oct. 3, 2012) as the 2012-13 President of the Michigan Municipal League Board of Trustees.

Lossing, who spent the past year as the board’s vice president, was selected as president by the 19-member board during the Michigan Municipal League’s 2012 Convention taking place on Mackinac Island.

In addition, Utica Mayor Jacqueline Noonan was selected as 2012-13 board vice president. As vice president, Noonan is in line to become the League president next year. View a press release about Lossing here and a press release about the new board members here.

In addition to selecting its officers, the League board also welcomed three newly elected and three re-elected members during its annual meeting Oct. 3. New board members are Steve Baker, councilmember for the city of Berkley; Steve Brock, Farmington Hills city manager; and Rebecca Hopp, councilmember for the city of Ferrysburg. Also re-elected to the 19-person board were Susan Baldwin, Battle Creek mayor; Nathan Triplett, East Lansing mayor pro tem; and Kathie Grinzinger, Mount Pleasant city manager.

The six newly elected trustees join Executive Director & CEO Dan Gilmartin and the other volunteers who remain on the 2012-13 board: Deb Greene, Rogers City mayor pro tem; Dan Greer, Jackson city councilmember; Amos O’Neal, Saginaw city councilmember; Suzanne Pixley, Eastpointe mayor; Charles Pugh, Detroit city council president; Lois Allen-Richardson, Ypsilanti mayor pro tem; Ricci Bandkau, Brighton city councilmember; Dick Bolen, Wakefield mayor; Scott Erickson, Ironwood city manager; Adam Umbrasas, Kingsley village manager; and Pauline Repp, Port Huron mayor.

The board also thanked Hamtramck Mayor Karen Majewski, Paw Paw Village Manager Larry Nielsen and Patricia Capek, Cedar Springs councilmember, for their years of service on the board.

View photos of the new president and newly elected and re-elected board members here in this set on flickr.


Newly elected and re-elected MML Board members get sworn into office by League CEO Dan Gilmartin.