ICMA, Day Two

Day Two of the ICMA conference was a busy one. I ventured into the exhibitor space, with a huge number of companies and organizations showing off their products and services to local government administrators.

Like this woman representing Bolton and Menk, a company that provides engineering services.


Even my own national professional organization, 3CMA, was represented! I hung around that booth for a bit and visited with executive directors Dick and Pam Lillquist, some of their staff and a couple of other 3CMA members.



And, just like on Tuesday, the 21 city videos showing best practices were being shown in the ICMA "studio" plus on screens throughout the Richmond Convention Center, in hotel rooms, on tour buses, etc.



I attended a couple of seminars and was among hundreds fortunate enough to learn from Cokie Roberts, the keynote speaker.

Then I caught a cab and made it to the airport in time to fly home, including a four-hour layover (ugh) at Dallas/Ft. Worth. It's good to be back on terra firma.

Greetings from Richmond!

I'm at the International City-County Management Association (ICMA) conference in Richmond, Virginia, where more than 2,000 people are sharing ideas, learning from each other's experiences, and improving their local government management skills.

Pasadena was one of only 21 cities selected by ICMA to have a video featured about best practices in a wide range of fields. We were selected because of our environmental programs, which are far ahead of the curve.

See the video here.

The 21 videos are being shown on screens throughout the convention center, in hotel rooms, on tour buses and on the ICMA website.

The conference started on Sunday. I'm flying home today (Tuesday), and for the rest of the week I'll be working in the press room at the League of California Cities conference in Long Beach through Saturday.

About 10 PIOs from throughout California (and one from Reno) do this every year, providing information to reporters covering the conference, teaching city managers and city council members how to survive on-camera interviews, writing and producing the daily conference newsletter, sending news releases to city managers' and council members' hometown newspapers, and much more.

My next post will be from the League conference!