Ocean City

Leaving Denver, we headed to Baltimore-Washington Airport. Our car met us and we headed to Ocean City, Maryland for the Maryland Municipal League meeting. It was a two hour drive and we went through much of the areas that were having the terrible rains. I had never been to Ocean City and it is quite a city. It is growing a good deal and land prices are through the roof.

Henry Marafaffa of Gaithersburg, Maryland was our host and helped us get around the city. One amazing thing that we learned was that thousands of Eastern European young people were working in Ocean City. Every store and hotel had dozens of these kids working in the summer.

I spoke to about a thousand delegates on Monday and received a good reception. Several cities have signed on to the Inclusive Communities Program and there were several more who wanted information.

I met several former West Virginians at the conference. One was Scott Nicewarner of Hagerstown, Maryland. He is the son of Phil Nicewarner, a former principal in Harrison County that I worked with years ago. Scott is a great guy and we shared some stories about Clarksburg and Harrison County. He is an IT professional in Hagerstown and seems to being doing quite well.

After a nice evening on the Boardwalk, we got to bed early for what turned out to be a day long adventure dealing with weather and flight delays. The flight from BWI to Pittsburgh was canceled and we were sent to Philadelphia for a later flight. After starting out from Ocean City at 10:00AM, we finally rolled into Clarksburg at around 3:00AM in the morning.

So much for the "friendly skies". It wasn't really that bad. We got to see three airports in one day. haha

Meeting the Bus

I almost forgot one very big highlight of our trip to Denver. As we got to the airport, we got on the tram that goes between terminals and there was our favorite Pittsburgh Steeler, Jerome Bettis. I was a typical fan and introtuced myself to him like a 10 year old kid. He was very nice and shook hands. No bodyguards, no assistants. I was really impressed with him.

Mayor Hickenlooper

John Hickenlooper is the Mayor of Denver and his story is very interesting. I've worked with John on several occasions dealing with the Telecom issue. John is one of the leaders on the Telecom issue and seems to be a very credible authority on technology in general. He became Mayor of Denver due to his work as a citizen advocate. He started a brew pub in Denver and led several successful efforts to help his neighborhood and the entire city. He also is very familiar with West Virginia, having started a brew pub in Wheeling, several years ago. He said he stayed with the effort in Wheeling for several years, but ultimately had to close the pub.

Pam and I visited the Mayor at his loft apartment just down from Coors Field. His wife's name is Helen and they have a young son, Ted. The loft was really neat. We don't get to see many loft's in West Virginia and it is a really great way to live. You really feel a part of the city and from John's loft, you can hear the crowds at Coor's Field. We had some wine and cheese and then headed to the field for the Rockies-Texans game.

Sam Mamet, the league director in Colorado hosted us for the game and the seats were great. We were right behind home plate and you could hear every sound. Sam's son Abe came with him and we really had a good time. There was a short rain delay, but it worked great because we went into the clubhouse for a snack. The Governor of Colorado was at the game and sat a few rows away from us.(I think we had the better seats!!!!)

Another thrill was when they put my name on the jumbotron at the field. Sam worked it out and I was really surprised.

All in all, we had a great visit to Colorado.

Rocky Mountain Highs and Beach Boy Blues

I spoke at the Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities on Thursday morning in Pittsburgh at the William Penn Hotel. My good friend, Mayor John Brenner of York, Pennsylvania is the president this year and is doing a great job. York is one of the cities that has joined the Inclusive Communities Program. Jack Garner is the Executive Director of the league and does a great job. Jack has been battling cancer for the past several years, but he always has a smile on his face and works as hard as any director in the country.

I got to see Brian O'Neill from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who is a Past President of the National League of Cities. I also was surprised to see Charlie Lyons of Arlington, Mass, who was visiting the conference. Charlie served as President of NLC in 2004. Governor Ed Rendell spoke at lunch and he is clearly running for reelection. Lynn Swann, the former Steeler is his opponent and spoke the following day.

I had to hurry to the Pittsburgh Airport to catch a flight to Denver, Colorado. My wife, Pam joined me for the trip and we were late leaving Pittsburgh and therefore got into Denver around 9:30PM. We got our rental car and headed for Breckenridge, the site of the Colorado Municipal League Annual Conference. We looked forward to a beautiful drive in the Rockies, but it was dark and all we saw was the road in front of us. The steep mountains make driving an experience. We arrived around 1:00AM and checked into the hotel and hit the sack around 2:00AM.

When we woke up on Friday and walked to breakfast, we were astounded by the beautiful scenery. It's no wonder people flock to Breckenridge to ski. We got to walk around the town and bask in the beautiful weather. The altitude is really an experience. A short walk leaves you breathless and everyone seems to have gotten the message to tell the tourists to "drink lots of water". If we heard it once, we heard it a hundred times.

The meeting was really great. The immigration issue is red hot in Colorado and I think many of the city officials were touched by the Inclusive Communities Program. Several cities have signed up and more are working on it. Several city officials spoke about what they were doing in thier cities to build a more inclusive community. Mayor Ken Fellman was really kind and told me that he believed that the program has already had a huge effect in his city.

Pam and I drove back to Denver on Saturday morning and did a real tourist thing by visiting the grave of Buffalo Bill Cody. It was pretty tacky, but the view from Lookout Mountain was spectacular. Lots of pictures that I'll try to post in the next few days.

Vancouver, British Columbia

I'm attending the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, British Columbia. There are over 10,000 delegates from throughout the world attending this conference. We got to hear from the Canadian Prime Minister yesterday and he spoke about how Canada was dealing with a lot of the problems that face us in the United States. The forum is being sponsored by the UN-Habitat and although it is somewhat daunting to put your arms around the vast issues that many countries face. The diversity at this conference is really interesting. Colorful Africian dresses and virtually every race and culture are represented.

I attended a session on social inclusion which is a complimentary concept to the Inclusive Communities agenda. It is funny how the issues of developing countries are so similar to local problems in the United States. One quote that came out of this session was, "between us and democracy is the Bureaucracy".

Another theme that I picked up was the concept that cities are a living organism and follows the idea of growth, decay and regrowth. This hit me as something that we so often overlook. Cities need to regenerate to adapt to changing conditions. We sometimes forget this and lament the fact that this is part of the life of cities. No city in history has ever remained the same. They grow, they shrink, they thrive and they suffer.

Vancouver is a beautiful city and is one that is very diverse. Asians make up around 35 percent of the population. The city has a large amount of housing in the downtown and Mayor Sam Sullivan said that the use of cars is declining and they are on the path to being more eco friendly. Mayor Sullivan is an interesting fellow and someone who is very inspiring. He is a parapaligic, the result of a diving accident when he was 19. He is truly someone who has excelled in spite of his disability. He is an inventor and has done some great work in helping others who are disabled, excell in sailing and other ways. I feel privlidged to know Mayor Sullivan and am inspired by his positive attitude.

I did get to walk around Stanley Park in Vancouver and it is one of the nicest public parks in the world. It is massive and has a lot of activities throughout the park for young and old.

I leave at 4:30AM tomorrow for Pittsburgh for a speech on Thursday and then on to Colorado.

Never a dull day on the NLC trail.

A whirlwind week

Continuing on with my ongoing travels for the National League of Cities, I had the opportunity to attend the Arkansas Municipal League annual meeting in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hot Springs is a very nice city of around 35,000 people. It is very historic and they have done a great job of keeping the historic downtown intact. When they say "hot" springs they really mean it. There was a spring in the park and we put our hands in it and it was like boiling water. We had lunch at the Arlington Hotel which is an old hotel that has quite a history. Apparently, Al Capone and his henchmen would stay in Hot Springs years ago.

The convention center is very large of the size of the city and it hosted the meeting very well. I saw a lot of my good friends at the conference. Tommy Baker, an alderman in Arkansas was just elected to the state assembly. I also saw Tommy Swaim and his wife Judy. The league director, Don Zimmerman, let us have his car for the afternoon and we got to see a little bit of the countryside. It is a lot like West Virginia.

I got to have dinner with Benny Petrus, the new Speaker of the House in Arkansas. He is a very nice guy and gave me an insight into some of the political issues in Arkansas. Also got to meet Governor Mike Huckebee. He is a possible presidential contender. He recently lost over a hundred pounds. He didn't give me any diet tips, but he did say I could buy his book. His speech was very positive and it appears that Arkansas is having a good budget year.

We went to a concert by country star, Blake Shelton on our last night in Hot Springs. It was a great show and we had great seats. The seats were so good that I didn't hear again for about 6 hours.

So much for Hot Springs, I have to be on my way to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Viva Las Vegas

I visited Las Vegas last week to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors Annual Meeting. I stayed at the Paris Casino and Hotel. To say this was a great visit was an understatement. Mayor Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas is a great host. It seemed like everyone in Vegas was at our meeting. I got to meet Lance Burton, the magician. His producer was sitting at my table and he brought him over to introduce him to us. We also heard from Wayne Newton. The dinner was one of the most lavish that I have ever attended.

I saw former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise at the meeting and he joined me for lunch. He is now the president of an educational group working for at risk youth. He seemed to be doing well.

The U.S. Conference has the Who's Who of American mayors in attendance. The new mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villargosa, Ray Nagin of New Orleans, Bob O'Conner of Pittsburgh, John Hickenlooper of Denver and dozens of others.

I was on the program with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. A video of my presentation is at http://usmayors.org/74thAnnualMeeting/video/videolink.asp?video=Sun_Plenary/Sun_Plenary_02_Hunt

I also attended a session on Vacant and Dilapidated Buildings. I got a lot of good information and saw some great presentations from several cities around the country. I spoke to the meeting and told them a little about the Demolition Program that I run in West Virginia. http://usmayors.org/74thAnnualMeeting/video/videolink_vacant.asp?video=Sun_VacantLots/Sun_Vacant_05_Hunt

Wrapping up the conference was a visit to the new Circqe Du Soliel presentation. It featured the Beatles music and was one of the finest shows that I have ever seen. I still can't believe how great it was.

Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce Meeting

What a week. I was invited to speak at a conference of the Detroit Area Regional Chamber of Commerce at Mackinac Island in upstate Michigan. This is a very nice place!!! It reminded me a lot of the Greenbriar Hotel. There were about 1700 attendees. I was introduced by Edsel Ford, Jr. I got to speak to him and he is a pretty nice guy. The audience seemed to connect with the Inclusive Community agenda.

Mackinac Island does not allow any automobiles and the transportation is by horse drawn wagons. Some of the wagons were built by the Fischer Body Company and were over 100 years old. I flew up to the island on a private plane owned by the Grand Hotel. It was a prop plane and the flight was one of the better ones of late.

I took a lot of pictures of the great lakefront houses. They were some of the largest homes that I have ever seen.

The Grand Hotel is truly a "grand" hotel. The rooms were brightly colored. The funny thing about the room was that the television was a small 12" Sony. I guess with all of the interesting things at the resort, television is the last thing you should be concerned with.

I left the island to catch my flight to Pittsburgh. I was the only one on the plane going back to Detroit. Felt like a real celebrity.