Pat’s PIECE August 2023

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to serve on the Board of an International Association?  Do you enjoy working with colleagues in an effort to understand the challenges that they are facing and to help establish best practices to improve local government?  Are you dedicated to professional local government management?    

If so , this year ICMA is seeking a non-CAO VP candidate from the Southeast Region to join the 2024 ICMA Board.  To be eligible, the non-CAO candidate must be an “assistant manager or departmental position” who has been a member of ICMA for at least five years and has worked in local government for five years.  The nominee can be from any state in the SE region (which includes Virginia) regardless of where the other regional VP’s are located.  States can also nominate more than one candidate from their association. 

The Southeast region has the largest number of ICMA members of any region and we are a very diverse group of members.  The pool of members eligible to serve as ICMA President comes from the individuals that have served as Vice-President. There is a strong desire to find talented and qualified non-CAO members from our region to serve as VP and then be eligible to serve as a future President of ICMA.  The ICMA nominations schedule starts this fall after a general awareness campaign, so now is a good time to think about your interest in seeking this opportunity.

Virginia has had a strong tradition of providing outstanding leaders to be a part of the ICMA Board.  Most recently, Valmarie Turner and Laura Fitzpatrick have both served on the ICMA Board as non-CAO members.  Bonnie Svrcek and Ed Daley both served as ICMA President while representing Virginia.  If you want to know more about the ICMA Vice-President role and how meaningful it is to serve in this capacity, I would encourage you to contact any of these individuals for information about serving as an ICMA Vice-President.

Since the ICMA conference in Austin is on the horizon (September 30 – October 4), I want to remind you that there are some conference scholarship opportunities for early career professionals, small community employees, workplace diversity and for first year graduate students.  If you are interested, check for details at icma.org/annual-conference/scholarships.  The application deadlines are August 16, 2023.  Serving on the ICMA conference planning committee, I can tell you that this is shaping up to be an outstanding conference for both location and content.  I encourage you to consider attending and coming to the Virginia reception at the conference.

This month I want to give a “Pat-on-the-Back” to our Virginia Senior Advisors.  The Senior Advisor Program is a partnership between ICMA and state sponsors to provide personal support to help address the personal and professional needs of individual members. Did you know that Virginia has more senior advisors than any state except California and North Carolina?  These individuals are retired with significant years of local government experience and stand willing to assist any of us with particular issues or questions where it would be helpful to talk with someone that has knowledge on the issues that we face but removed from our particular jurisdictions.  Our senior advisors are Ed Daley, Brenda Garton, Jack Gross, Pete Huber, Joe Paxton, Kim Payne, William Porter, Lane Ramsey, Bonnie Svrcek, and Dave Whitlow.  Please let them know if you are struggling with an issue, even if you have not met them at some time in the past.  I can assure you that they are committed to helping you succeed and I have sought advice from several of them during my tenure in Manassas.

Let’s all remember to stay aware of changing traffic patterns with school starting back up this month and I hope that everyone was able to get at least a short summer break away from your day-to-day responsibilities to recharge.  I look forward to hearing how you are making your jurisdiction a little better every day!

Join me in welcoming new members this month. 

Antonia Arias-Magallon, Administrative Manager/Town Clerk, Town of Vinton

Maria Calloway, Finance Director, County of Gloucester

Josh Crawford, Business Systems Analyst, County of Orange

Ashley Jacobs, Management Analyst, County of Orange

Andrew Keen, Finance Director, Town of Vinton

Christopher Shorter, County Executive, County of Prince William

Marshall Stanley, Economic Development Specialist, Town of Vinton