[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: National League of Cities Conference

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Appelbaum, Matt

Colleagues – Here’s a summary of some of the sessions and other items of interest from the National League of Cities fall conference that I recently attended in Austin:
        
As you perhaps read in the paper, I was elected to the NLC Board of Directors for a two-year term.  As I’ve previously noted, NLC is in the process of modifying its Board and
 Committee structure, so it’s a bit unclear what role I’ll have as a Board member.  However, one reason I wanted to get on the Board is to work to keep the Policy Committees – I’ve served for many years on the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources (EENR)
 Committee, and Macon is currently serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee – functioning as well as possible.  NLC is putting a much greater emphasis on federal advocacy – which is fine – but it isn’t quite clear how that will affect the
 Committees, and whether their role will be reduced (in my opinion) to largely supporting advocacy efforts at the direction of the Board, or whether the Committees will continue to be able to raise and examine new issues of their choosing, and provide the important
 function of sharing best practices.  The Board will now have a smaller executive committee that will, to a large extent, do much of the real work, so it’s very good news for us that Sam Mamet, Executive Director of the Colorado Municipal League (on whose Executive Committee I also serve) will be on that key Board committee for the next year.  Finally, the incoming NLC President is Ralph Becker, mayor of Salt Lake City and a friend of mine, and the important 2nd vice-president slot (this determines who will be president two years from now) went to my close friend Matt Zone, who is a councilmember from Cleveland.

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EENR recommended several changes to the NLC Policy and also a number of resolutions (these are expressions of policy that are more timely and related to federal action that may
 arise during the next year).  Of most interest is a Policy change that clarifies that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced “rapidly” and by replacing fossil-based energy systems.  Two important resolutions on fracking and resilient communities were recommended to be renewed.  And a new resolution “supporting urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change” was introduced.  All of these changes were approved at the NLC business meeting.  While perhaps NLC’s positions on
 some of these issues isn’t quite as aggressive as we might like, they have been strengthened over the years I’ve been on EENR and are rather clear and compelling statements regarding climate change and energy, particularly coming from an organization whose members come from the entire country.

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Other policy/resolutions of some interest to us include: asking the feds to allow banks to deal with marijuana businesses; passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act (the very top NLC priority); affirming the freedom to marry and federal non-discrimination for gay and lesbian couples; requesting additional efforts and federal funding to end chronic homelessness; protecting cities from rail disasters involving hazardous materials; making it easier to create rail quiet zones; supporting the ability of communities to create broadband networks.

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I also serve on the steering committee of the University Communities Council, and we had a good meeting setting forth ways for that group to become more active and focus on issues of common interest.  And I’m on the steering committee of NLC’s Sustainable Cities Institute.

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Perhaps the most interesting session was one on the “sharing economy,” with reps from Lyft and AirBnB among other speakers.  There was a large audience
which become more and more unhappy/hostile as the session went on and questions were asked.  While AirBnB is not exactly the same as VRBO, and Boulder doesn’t regulate taxis or Lyft-type services, it was interesting to hear the concerns and complaints from other cities, and
there is no nice way to put this
the partial-truths offered up by the company reps.  Lyft kept claiming that they’re wonderful for the environment because they put customers into otherwise empty car seats.  However, since Lyft drivers don’t know in advance where the customers want to go, and since the drivers clearly cruise much like taxis, Lyft’s claim is nonsense (although they are working on a service where commuters would pick up folks along their route).  AirBnB of course claimed that their providers (folks who own the houses/rooms being rented out) are required to follow local laws
but that too is nonsense.  As many in the audience pointed out, this really isn’t about sharing but about making money – and while there is no doubt benefit from the emerging services there can also be considerable impact.  Austin, I believe, allows such services as VRBO and AirBnB in neighborhoods, but requires owner-occupancy and also limits the number of providers in geographic regions.  Other cities indicated other approaches, and obviously this will be on our plate in Boulder next year.

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I also attended – since I was a facilitator at a table – a session on a variety of issues relating to healthy, livable cities.  There were a dozen or so tables among which people
 rotated for small group discussions, and my table was on energy efficiency.  Very conveniently I was joined by our friend Alice Madden from DOE.  Lots of good conversation, many cities really trying to figure out how to get started and/or ramp up their activities, much interest in some of Boulder’s programs and policies.

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There were also some interesting sessions on the climate impacts on water – both too much as in flooding and too little as in droughts, dealing with the millennial generation,
 and looking at transportation options, particularly using such techniques as complete streets.

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One final NLC-related item.  When I was in Nantes a couple of years ago attending a conference at which I was a speaker, a friend – mayor of Pinecrest, FL, and also on EENR (and next year’s committee chair) – and I had several conversations with French officials who are working on sustainability.  The French embassy in the U.S. (in DC of course) will be holding a forum on urban sustainability in March, and we’ve been working with them on it and got NLC involved as well.  We also got them to hold the forum just before the spring NLC conference in DC so that attendees could more easily get to both events.  I’ve been invited to speak on at least one panel, and so I’m planning on heading
 out to DC a couple of days early in order to get to both events.

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As for Austin
well, lots of live, very loud music to be sure, but I can’t say I found the downtown area to be particularly charming or terribly interesting.  I didn’t get out into the neighborhoods, but I did have a half-day on a gorgeous Sunday morning when I walked a good portion of their very wide trail along the Colorado River (their version, not ours of course) – watching a very Boulder-like constant parade of joggers, dog-walkers, and bicyclists.  The only surprise was at least one, and possibly two, very large, unfenced park areas in which dogs were allowed off-leash, and where the many, many dogs were indeed having a great time.